


reclaim your crown

by parareve



Series: you can be king again [2]
Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: /jazz hands, Anxiety Attacks, Blood Magic, Childhood Trauma, Everyone Is Gay, Feudal Japan, M/M, Multi, Mutual Healing, Original Character(s), Post-Series, Recovery, Resettled Suwa, Self-Acceptance, Self-Worth Issues, Sexual Content, Shamanism, Spiritual magic, Survivor Guilt, advisor fai, big ol' warning for heavy themes, daimyo kurogane, dreamseeing, eichi deserves everything, emotional development, gratuitous scenes of these two being idiots in love, i've edited this to all hell and frankly probably still will so, lordships and magic shenanigans abound, someday somehow there will be a wedding at the end of this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-06-26 11:02:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 35,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19766836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parareve/pseuds/parareve
Summary: A territory remade. A lordship reinstated. Settling into a new life comes seamlessly, quick as the blur of winter rain into spring; its peace cloaks travel-wearied limbs, begins the slow journey to mend scarred hearts, and almost (almost) seems untouchable.Then Kurogane starts to hear the dead.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a loose sequel to [‘Til Kingdom Come,’](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4573467) a oneshot I wrote years and years ago when I first teased into ideas for a resettled Suwa fic. This builds on that framework using a headcannon that Kurogane has his mother’s priestblood, a power he only awakens once his spirit grows quiet enough to hear it. The entire premise of this toys with what that implies for his sense of identity, and the growth it will take to transform a power to kill into one to heal—both his people, and himself.
> 
> At it's core, this is a story of recovery: the good sides, and the ugly; the painful, and the freeing. I started it during a period of relapse, with a lot of frustration, and not much direction. I knew I would get out of it, no matter how difficult it was; still, I needed something to give me encouragement that I could. This is what I hope this can be for those who need to hear it, too.
> 
> I pulled a bit from the concept of Shinto kannushi (male equivalent to miko) as inspiration, but most reference was taken from the shamanism of the Ainu people, where shamans traditionally acted as social leaders by providing divination and healing, often as heads of political roles within the community. The Japan referenced here is loosely set in the Edo period, where the Ainu people still had a presence through the beginning of its history. 
> 
> Sprinkles of Japanese terms are consistent throughout this, to contextualize things I feel would otherwise be lost in translation. I'll be updating glossaries in the endnotes of each chapter, by order of appearance, as well as a small archive of research notes and inspirations. This is the first multi-chapter story I've tackled in a while, and is very much a work in progress, but I'd love nothing more than to see it finished one day. Thank you for giving it a read!

“You’re sure about this?”

Summer clings on his skin, a cold kiss through hair still damp. The touch brings a shiver, met with twinkling laughter through the chime that dances where the shoji to their terrace lays open. There’s a hint of nectar, here—honeyed, faint—that Kurogane draws in with a quiet breath, savors slow.

The twitch at his mouth doesn’t fade, however—it’s not a bitter thing, though not entirely pleased, either (he had seen this conversation coming; still, the happening of it sticks uncomfortably between his ribs)—as his eyes stay trained on the portrait glimmering purplish before him. What was once a boy has grown to carved lines of cheek and jaw, broad-built and sand-weathered skin; but there’s still an echo of the brat within the curve of that mouth, sure as it is stubborn.

“Yes,” Syaoran says, voice only a slight echo through the hum of dimensional magic. Almond hair falls in an unruly mess, hanging against linen collar in short flicks, and it’s enough of a marker of the soul still beneath that Kurogane can’t help letting something of a smirk unfurl, even with the ache in his lungs growing.

(If the kid’s ready to travel on his own, he has to reason that he _knows_ it—still, a part of him lurches, instinctive and disobedient, at the quiet request to stay put, keep his guard down. It’s a hard pill to swallow, letting go—but if the brat wants to protect himself, then Kurogane has to let him.)

They had always known it was a possibility ( _Tomoyo-hime’s waiting on you, isn’t she?_ the boy had said before—and even if the words hummed only with care and concern then, the unspoken _Don’t worry about me_ had been clear enough). He’s expected it to come to the surface, for some time now; it doesn’t change how _abrupt_ it feels.

(Everything always will, he supposes. Being a parent has that nature.)

He toys with the token between his fingers slowly, the sensation of his lover’s spellwork as familiar to him as the shade of celestite blue. The tick at his mouth pulls wider, something of a snort clung to it as he casts his eyes down beneath prickling brow.

“You always did what you set your mind to, huh?” he grumbles, though the annoyance of its burr strays far too close to fondness; the man reflected before him (his heart still mulishly clinging to _boy_ ) crumples into laughter, lashes crinkling and skin dimpled, voice quick to pitch into a well-known crow.

“ _You_ were the one that put that on me,” Syaoran denies, jovially, “You and Fai-san both. I was always just minding my own business, thank you very much.”

“Tche.” Kurogane keeps his eyes down, though his cheek creases further over the curl of his lip. “Haven’t changed at all, have you?”

He’s given a grin that’s full-teeth and just a touch bemused (because he _had_ , of course—all of them had, and in more ways than one; two years would do that, to you.) “Your hair’s getting longer,” is what Syaoran says, a subtle acknowledgement of that very fact, though through his teeth lilts a meaning unspoken ( _Fai-san’s made you soft_ ). Kurogane sends bloody eyes running, if only to hide the burn that prickles beneath his skin, quick to bristle and scowl, as he always does. Against the glower of his spine, curls of wettened ink flick in cold lines about his neck, but its an ignored sensation, something he’s long grown used to beneath the rasp of his fingers twisting knots through the length of them. “It—you know, I’m _surprised_ —but it suits you,” that voice continues, fully teasing now, and the man in question (foe-turned-ally-turned-father), only grubbles further.

“And the hime?” Kurogane prods on, in place of distraction.

Syaoran’s laughter fades, a gradual melt into softer smile, distant eyes; even still, those words are no less warm. “We’ve talked it through. She knows it’s what I’ve decided.”

(It’s a forced decision, nonetheless, no matter how self-assured its declaration is, and Kurogane feels a frown tick in the face of it. Even with his own fate a twisting thing of presumed agency and pawning hands, there was still a very real weight of _escape_ , if ever needed; the children he had watched over, from naïve youth to matured individuals in their own right, had never been so lucky. Knowing that they could never brake free from forces outside their own control—even still, even _now_ —only makes the itch in his fist draw tighter.

At one time, he would have vowed to re-stitch the very fabric of the dimensions, himself, if it meant that meddling bastard wouldn’t have had a hand in any of their lives. Enough years had wisened him to recognize he wouldn’t have anything of the life he had built, now, if the man hadn’t.)

“Hn.” Kurogane taps his thumb against his knee, rasping slight over ebon silk. Even with the image before him a portrait worlds away, the man that flickers within it stands with a posture too similar, too much like desert sun and half-tied cloaks, the words aching through his teeth even before they are said (and he can only wonder if his eyes look the same way the kids’ had, then, when the same question had been asked). “So where will you go?”

____________________________

_“It’s not as though I have a home to go to,” Fai answers, and even through the stark moroseness of its referencing, the lull of that voice is nothing bitter. (It’s taken years under their belts, and miles beneath their feet—but the promise of a life reborn is something the mage has claimed, viscerally, with every pound of that bandaged heart, and the sight of it draws a dizzying, vibrant pride in the man who stands beside him, silent though that he stays.) “So, Kuro-sama’s home will have to do.”_

_“You will stay in touch, won’t you?” Sakura pleas, hands flying to clasp steady to the breadth of one willowy palm, and Fai laughs, soft and low and beautifully raw._

_“Sakura-chan, we won’t be gone forever,” he murmurs, “We’ll always be ready, when you need us.”_

_It’s enough to satisfy the princess, a childish pout still puffing her cheeks, even with the blossom of her lithe frame stuck on the fringes of adulthood; she only squeezes his palm tighter, in a silent demand that they will be._

_“I hope all goes well with the Court,” she continues, “And that—and that everyone treats you and Kurogane-san well, and that everything just sets right into place—”_

_It’s enough to make Kurogane bark out a laugh, the foreignness of a sound still newly-nurtured a sharp thing where four pairs of eyes turn to balk at it._

_“That’s the last thing you need to worry about,” he huffs, and the grin that creases dangerously over his cheek promises nothing less, “He’ll have the fuckin’ lot of ‘em up in smoke, if they don’t.”_

____________________________

“A northern world,” answers Syaoran, and runs his thumb lightly over the pearlish ear that twitches within his lap. His eyes are quick to gleam with delight, familiar with a spark brought on only by the possibility of new regions to research, and Kurogane can’t help mirroring his own half-smile in the sight of it. “I’ve always been curious about the histories of them.”

“I’m sure that wizard’s got a map laid out for you, already.”

The unspoken name lands over Syaoran’s shoulders with a tender nod, his thumb turning to nestle gently against the white fur beneath. “Kimihiro said he’ll try to have me return to Clow as much as I can.” Syaoran smiles, the raise of his brows a soft thing. “And Moko-chan has been speaking every night with the other Moko-chan. Between them both, who _knows_ what they’ve already been planning.”

“You’ll be in good hands, then,” Kurogane chuckles (and it’s its own tease, but still, he means it—someone needed to watch over the kid, if the two of them couldn’t do it themselves).

He can only blink when Syaoran gives him an odd grin, with a look far too knowing; he makes out something of a laugh before saying, “Not in as good hands as _you_.” The chortle only pitches higher when Kurogane stares, _stunned_ , and then cuts his head down, crimson quick to burn on his cheeks, but his son’s own teasing is no less tender; out of the whole band of them, _he_ had seen enough bickering and bull-headedness and brashness between his surrogate fathers (enemies, then allies; lethal partners who fell fierce to lovers, quick enough to leave the very aura of the dimensions shivering in their wake) to know what stubborn denial looked like—and it had only made the growth that threaded tight between them now all the more _known_ (and, as a result, all the more revered).

____________________________

_“Do you want this?”_

_His sleeves wrinkle beneath the clench of his fingers, and his words come too thick, too blunt, a stark indicator of a future unnamed. The man before him—painted in silks that gleam silver and lilac against the low light, golden hair turned to ashen ember, eyes bright and haunting and vibrant blue drawn wide at the space laid between them—turns slow, manuscript a heavy thing where its binding clings to his fingers._

_“Want what?” Fai whispers, skin tingling only a touch pink._

_(He’d never been good with words, and now was no exception, even with so much struggling to tumble out at once.)_

_“_ This _,” Kurogane continues, hitching only slight as he gestures messily between them, “The titles, the Court—I mean, are you—are you sure this is what you want?”_

 _He can’t contain the scatter of breath that blurs blinding through his teeth, feverish still save the very real weight in his eyes, and his lover—thin, and fierce, and ethereal, and_ strong _—leaves the text abandoned in a careless flutter, taking no time at all to cross the sparse steps between them._

_(Maybe it’s the vampire; maybe it’s the drowning musk of magic above it; maybe it’s nothing at all—but Kurogane’s lungs still stutter and his jaw still tightens, as it always does, when those eyes land upon him with a quiet calm that answers everything still unvoiced within him, without need for words, at all.)_

_“Kuro-sama,” Fai says, and swallows, voice thick with an emotion he can’t place. It feels natural as anything, when those pale palms raise to lay over the folds of his silks, fingertips a gentle rasp where they twist within the bands of layered collar. “Let me make this—let me make this_ very _clear,” his lover breathes, and the burn of his eyes sends a shiver vicious as it is soft down the tense knots of his spine, “I don’t care where I am, so long as I’m with you; I don’t care what role I have, so long as it is at your side; and, frankly, I could care less what title I’m given, so long as it is known that I am yours, and you are_ mine _.”_

_The rasp of his voice turns to a lethal thing, molten and hissing on that one word as though the very breath of newborn flame, and Kurogane stiffens, throat turned dry despite himself in the familiarity of it as scarred fingertips chase farther to cradle the hollows of his cheeks._

_“Wherever you go,” the mage presses on, only a whisper of a breath through the space drawn thin between them, palms guiding bowing head closer, “Whatever you do, whoever you become—I will follow you.”_

_The vow is barely finished before it is swallowed beneath the press of chasing lips, hand of iron and synthetic skin unfolding to curl none too lightly into hair that gleams like starlight, its mirror of blood and bone catching with frightening softness on the sharp crease from pale jaw to pinkish ear._

_“You,” Fai sighs then, gentle as the air that traces between the part of their mouths, “Are all I’ve ever wanted.”_

_Thin fingers are sent higher to smooth into ravenquilled hair, cool as the first ripple of river water beneath a skating touch, and through the quiver that chases down his skin—smirk a small thing on him that only grows, thumb hushing over the softness of fair cheek—Kurogane does nothing to deny him._

____________________________

“How is he?” Syaoran asks gently. Even with bloody eyes cutting back through their normal flame, even with the baritone of that voice rough and indifferent, it’s nearly too easy now for him to see straight through to the longing, pride, _warmth_ that beats beneath.

“Returns from Edo today.” Kurogane quirks one dark brow at the image that ripples before him. “Should ask him yourself, when you have the time.”

“I will.” Syaoran grins, in a way that eerily calls back to hazel eyes still-young and creased mouth still-shy, something that speaks to an era just on the fringes of a self-identity remade. “Advising suits him well, I’m guessing?”

It’s an understatement, at best, because they both know it does; he’s earned a snort, and a raise of raven brows, the man across from him letting a smile unravel slow on one side.

“Bastard’s smart enough to silence every bat the Mikado has under her thumb. She and the hime spent hours arguing over how many roles he could carry, before the eldest of the Court started conspiring to kill ‘em all.” Syaoran chokes on a laugh, nearly waking the sleeping creature beneath his palm. “The idiot gets off on seeing how much of a storm he can stir up between the old shits; of course it suits him.”

(It’s too easy to picture, the at-times demonic wit of the mage a well known feature through them all, fearsome as it is endearing, and Syaoran only puffs into a further snicker at the image of it.)

“And Suwa?” he continues, after laughter has softened and shoulders have relaxed.

“Her people are well.” Kurogane’s words ring quiet, firm with assuredness, a product of enough years of oversight to know (and the nod of his head is short, smile a small thing, but it is no less _proud_ —little else could be expected, after all, from her daimyo.) “There’s still enough to be done, but the nights are quiet.”

(A small detail, but enough of a thing to make Syaoran’s own grin widen—for he knows it’s the one thing the man across from him had always longed for beneath countless wraps of homesickness, and the one thing he had only recently opened as a possibility again. It softens his heart, only further, to see that he’s gotten it, now.)

____________________________

_“I don’t know what they would want of me,” comes a whisper beside him, nearly unheard through the whistle of wind through their silks—and Fai blinks at a spine drawn rigid, raven brow wrinkled tight and embers buried in blood-brown staring distant before them, lost somewhere through overgrown brush and forest pine and rice fields rolling unkempt into a rippling tide of green and gold._

_He didn’t know what he’d expected, when the option to return to a homeland near-forgotten had been thrown into his hands (it’d been a messy thing, conflicted but_ needed _, when Kurogane had spoken it, confessed like a secret into the flicker of dying lamplight). Fai had taken it carefully, given his permissions through open soul and open hand alike when they had taken the long trek west, and now—_

 _Now he stares aimless and struggles to stay on his feet, voiceless in the presence of so_ much _._

 _Too many things are laid between them, the weight of a thousand could-be’s spilling out through the speckled shards of rock beneath, and Fai swallows as he turns back to truly let himself breathe, to_ see _, to take it all in, now—every hint of status, wealth, inheritance long denied; every limitless boundary of mountain foothills and weathered paths; every potential for something new, something recreated, built together._

_(It means oaths broken and an enlistment revoked; a lordship granted and a territory reclaimed—and Fai can’t dare understand what such a decision would bring on his lover, even if he tried. Even still, the man beside him looks too lost to even fathom the potential: teeth grit tighter and eyes jerk away, too many memories cautiously boxed struggling to fit into a picture that no longer has space for them.)_

_“It’s…it’s not the same,” Kurogane mutters, something like anger in the hesitation of it that weakens into a muddied rasp, saying too much through so little. “And I know that. I know it can never be the same.” Dragonscaled hilt is clung to with fingers that search for a safety blanket rather than a weapon, and Fai feels his own curl beneath the helplessness that swallows him, blind for how to comfort a longing his own life had firmly abandoned. “I don’t know what they—”_

_That voice breaks, ripped to silence against the strength it takes to keep breath still and eyes dry, and Fai’s hand moves of its own accord to settle slow over knuckles that whiten against silver blade, a touch soft as the air that rattles from that broad chest._

_(Those hands, metal and blood alike, had spent enough years fighting down his own demons with words threaded through countless displays of harsh love (of_ need _), for nothing but an aching desperation to keep him by his side._

_And so, Fai reasons—fingers twisting tighter to the ones that slowly loosen to welcome them—it was only fair that it was his turn to do the same.)_

____________________________

“The idiot’s spent enough nights in the archives to come back smellin’ like ‘em,” Kurogane continues, a small break through the quiet, “but it keeps him busy. Actually shuts him up, for once.” His head tilts, breath coming quiet (eyes drawn to his feet, lingering through the silence, slow to return beneath the twitch in his brow), a curl of damp hair slipping wet over his shoulder. “He talks about you often.”

Syaoran glances away, the quirk of his own lips softening.

“I miss you both,” he admits, after a pause, and looks up with nothing but admiration (the bitterness had been replaced long ago, something forcefully ground out by the very man his eyes follow—and the gratitude for such a thing no doubt shines through, even now). “Let Fai-san know I’m thinking of him.”

“Hn,” is what Kurogane hums, instead of _We do, too_ , and lets a grin challenging as it is warm unravel over one side. “Remember to visit us, sometime. You know he’ll have your heads, if you don’t.”

Syaoran dissolves into another peel of laughter (because such play-threats are as common knowledge to him as the scent of desert blooms, and the routine of it only draws the knot in his chest looser and the smile at his cheek wider, head quickly shaken). “We will,” he promises. Kurogane knows he means it.

There’s silence, for a moment—leaves scatter through the whistle of wind past the veranda, and red eyes chase to follow them, the bite of his jaw a subtle thing, but seen nonetheless where muscle draws taunt over bone. (It’s…hard, leaving the conversation as it is. Little less than an hour, to turn one’s world upside down—Kurogane mulls over the fact with a breath that pulls just a touch bitter, able to see some irony in it, that as quickly as they were thrown into this boy’s life, they are just as quickly being quietly ushered from it.

There’s still life to be had, after the fact—still memories to be made, for the time they’ll be given—and he knows that is something he will have to cherish, even if its beginnings may be stumbling and strange.)

“Well.” His voice hitches, rumbling and gruff and familiar, but he smiles, a crease drawn deeper through his cheek and a line in his brow before he turns back. His palm claps to his knee, a quiet thud over black silk, _tap-tapping_ away any anxieties in place of understanding, acceptance, support. “Take care of yourself, brat.”

Syaoran smiles, a dizzying thing through its brightness. In it, Kurogane sees his own roguishness, sees the mage’s own impish grace, all rolled into something slanting and warm and uniquely his own—and the smirk at his own mouth releases into something frighteningly tender, a young sensation though that it is. The man before him grins all the wider at the sight of it. “I will, Otōsan.”

The image lasts only a moment or two more, something Kurogane wraps carefully to tuck into weathered corners later—there’s a whistle of wind through the fields, a glimmer of sunlight through twinkling glass, and Mokona’s spell fades in a fizzle of opalite, its smoke gone before he can blink the haze clear. Fai’s own token beats within his palm, a pulse of magic cut thin, before it’s warmth, too, fades, the violet aura clinging still to it melting to polished etchings through smooth rock.

Kurogane rasps his thumb over its edges slowly, breath easing from him coarse as sand on stone. He can’t linger too long on it (there’s work to be done, after all), but _still_ —

(Still, he’ll miss him.)

“Kakka.” Had he been younger, his mistress may have smacked him for letting himself be so distracted; the samurai who offers a pleasant smile from the open doorway—the bun at his crown raggled from travel, and dust weathering his tired robes—does nothing to scold the fact, only a crinkle in his eye and a knowing crease at his mouth before he bows. His breath is still hoarse (he’s run ahead, Kurogane realizes), and the vertigo of understanding that crashes over him can hardly be gathered once the man straightens with a bright grin. “The bushi are on their way.”

It takes a dizzying second to register—his breathing hitches and his heartbeat tears away despite himself, an itch of anticipation prickling already beneath his skin—but Kurogane _Hn’s_ , nods short. The samurai gives another little bow and creaks back to the steps, and he waits before pushing himself to his feet to follow, token squeezed still within his palm.

There’s warmth in the air and sweet dew nestling within his lungs—and for all the worries that he may have harbored before, kept quiet beneath twitching smile and tapping palms, the creak of the floorboards beneath his skin is as a good a comfort as any to send them washing from his back like a cresting tide.

He can feel the hum of his lover’s magic draw tight within his blood, even thin as its thread is, and in the distance, the flags of Suwa’s territory ripple wild in bright ribbons of blood red. The shock of hair pale as spritefire that swirls beneath is the only thing his eyes lay upon.

The kid will be just fine, a future waiting to be carved beneath his feet, and Kurogane—

Kurogane has a man to welcome home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _mikado_ — an older, now obsolete term for the Emperor of Japan (in this case Amaterasu, or Kendappa-ou) that became common in the 19th century, meaning “exalted gate”; an alternative to tennō, or “heavenly sovereign,” the formal address that Emperors traditionally hold.
> 
>  _hime_ — a term referring to a princess or lady of noble birth (more frequently used here to reference Sakura, though others will also use it to reference Tsukuyomi, or Tomoyo-hime); a more proper term in this instance could be ōjo, literally “king’s daughter,” which is used when referencing the daughter of a monarch, though the term hime can still apply here.
> 
>  _daimyō_ — feudal lords who operated as subordinates to the shōgun/Emperor from the 10th to the mid-19th centuries. Daimyo were typically already powerful leaders with ties to the Imperial family who were appointed to, or inherited, lands to oversee, which were guarded through hired samurai. In the Edo period, it was common for daimyo to be promoted from these samurai. The term can also refer to warlords of a region (or leaders to regional clans), who often rose to become shoguns or regents.
> 
>  _otōsan_ — a polite address for someone’s father; “Dad”. Not as formal as otōsama (“Father”) but not as casual as oyaji (“Dad/my old man”). 
> 
> _kakka_ — a term used for heads of state, government, high-ranking officials, and military leaders, meaning “Excellency,” or, in some cases, “My Lord” (in this case, this is the usual address given to Kurogane by his subordinates, as opposed to Tono or -dono (“Lord/Master”), in order to reference that he is head of an entire region, not solely someone of higher social status). 
> 
> _bushi_ — a historical term used during Japan’s pre-feudal and feudal periods, referring to the military caste or warrior class of the time; samurai (in this case, this is the term typically used to reference the samurai hired by Kurogane).
> 
> * * *
> 
> The largest inspiration for this fic was [this mmv](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOMVieuZCt4&list=PLrdJv3CtjutL5YkslH9dGymU9gmvn-q5l&index=7&t=1s), and, subsequently, the song ['King'](https://open.spotify.com/track/0zhzkkSXFj60Y5fzb2j9hU) by Lauren Aquilina, from which the titles for both this and its series are pulled. The Vagabond series was a major visual inspiration for the setting and character design, and was my initial fuel for the idea of Kurogane with long hair. [This image](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e7/66/2b/e7662bbcc55f771b7a31a9c1488b56a3.jpg) inspired the appearance we're starting out with here, but I have done [way](https://twitter.com/parareve/status/1159854086415671296?s=20), _[way](https://parareve.tumblr.com/post/187754750728/took-a-crack-at-a-hair-progression-series-and-of)_ [too much](https://twitter.com/parareve/status/1215717455357714432?s=20) headcannoning since then, and I'm absolutely weak to my core over the idea of it.
> 
> I yell about this story on twitter a lot. I'm also one of those helpless nerds who pours my feelings into playlists, so if that's your thing, you're welcome to listen along [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0qR6SCuKgwyeZYumZj8haE).


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re starting off with longer chapters here. There will be sprinkles of NSFW content throughout, from this point on (mostly of these two being affectionate and disgusting and in love, bc I’m self-indulgent and I can’t resist). Things get handsy with some blood-drinking; vampire kink has taken me by storm and I’m a mess for it.

_“Taxpayers, assessments, diplomats—you’re sure this is what you want?” His mistress’s voice, save its quietness, is nothing but humored, and its enough of a stubborn detail to pull his mouth scowling. “It’s not that I doubt your leadership, but…well…let’s just say I never pictured you on a dais.”_

_(Not bloodied and battle-worn, that is; there were plenty of ways he could get his ass on a chair and tote commands, high-born or not, and Tomoyo makes an odd snort at her own imaginings before her restraint crumbles, cackling coming loud and unabashed.)_

_“Tche.” Kurogane glares hard at the flooring, taking some effort to keep his mind off the burn in his skin. “Not like I couldn’t do it.”_

_“Oh, I never insinuated that.” Giggling is traded for a smile, and the touch that lays over his hand falls gently, with all the reassuring comfort it always has. “Nihon would jump at any chance to have Suwa pledge her allegiance once more, and there’s no doubt in my mind that you would carry her through it.”_

_There’s a twitch at his mouth, and a wrinkle in his brow, words left unspoken beneath tightening jaw._

_“…Do you doubt it, yourself?”_

_“It’s not—I don’t—” Kurogane bites out a growl, squeezing his eyes shut._

_“You’re worried about returning to things, the way they are now.”_

_Breath rustles, and cheek flexes, and eyes flee—and there are words that come now, pulled coarse and fumbling, like a first attempt to crawl from a cave. Kurogane forces them out nonetheless, despite the strain in his lungs. “I know they can’t go back to how they were. I_ know _that.” The squeeze over his palm tightens, a gentle thing. “I—fuck—to_ not _go back… To come here, and not—to_ cower _in these walls, and ignore all that I’ve left—if I_ don’t _…”_

_But he’s scared._

_He’s scared, and he’s angry, and he can’t think, can’t breathe, trapped beneath the memory of fire and ash and white silk stained red—_

_“Kurogane.” He looks up slowly. It takes him a moment to register the heat in his eyes, to blink it away with throat gritting and tight. Tomoyo draws his hand into both palms now, stroking thumbs an intentional pressure over the bones where scar no longer lies—and even through the synthetic blood beating in wired vein, he can feel the hum of her magic through his skin, a shiver pulled down his spine at the ghosting memory drawn with it. “Returning is never easy,” his mistress whispers, “Just as departing is. But it is an opportunity to continue growing.”_

_He sucks in a breath, shoves it out through his teeth, fist clenching and eyes cut down. She continues to stroke her thumb over the back of his hand, quiet, soothing._

_“I know their memory is pressing on you,” she murmurs, “If it is your calling to go back, and lay them to rest, truly—then you have my blessing.”_

_He doesn’t want to cry. He hasn’t, since he was a boy—the sensation had always struck an ugly chord within him, too tied to madness and death and the loss of everything he had ever known (tucking himself into dark corners had done little help, when the ache had washed over him so viciously). He had beaten it beneath his skin to move on (_ deny) _, enough years defined by ignoring such emotions, entirely._

 _But that was before he found a family. That was before he found a lover—once-wretched, a tortured shell of the man he would become, who had only pulled the ache of his own soul to the surface at the presence of such a violent kindred spirit; who had sent him to his knees with the desperation to give, to mend, to_ live on _._

 _(If_ Fai _could live on, then surely—surely, so could he.)_

 _“Take him with you,” Tomoyo murmurs. Her hand loosens only to let his palm chase to scrub viciously into wet lashes, a quiver in his lungs he has no desire to acknowledge. (It burns still, none the less, same as the bleeding heat he smudges from his other cheek. “You don’t have to face it alone.” Her smile is too soft, too much like midnight eye and crimson mouth—and when her palm raises to lay delicately over his cheek, the completion of an act never finished, he stares, shakes (_ shatters _)._

_Her hands are gentle, as they’ve always been, when she starts the careful process of piecing him back together. They keep him steady, anchor him against the quiver of his lungs, warm and vibrant as the gleam of magic beneath._

_“You have to trust. You can’t be afraid to let him in.” The words sound like a ripple beneath a rolling tide, but the meaning comes clear enough; still, it feels like drowning when he breathes, weighs against his limbs like a current when he swallows, fights to loosen the wrinkle in his brow, smears his knuckles over his cheeks again._

_Tomoyo draws his hand down, squeezes both of them within the gentle clasp of her own. It takes some effort for him to meet her eyes, flighting as his own are. She smiles then, a small thing._

_“He is ready to be there for you, now.”_

____________________________

The sensation of Fai’s magic is a morning sun first seen.

It had taken him months to tether it down to something recognizable (for any shivering pulses of his own aura at the sight of another had only been wild and sudden, thunderclaps of tingling heat from his heart to his head—difficult enough to put into words, let alone define). At one time, it had just been warmth, and light, and hissing smoke; the flicker of new flame, and the taste of ozone before a storm, tangled on his tongue and pounding within his blood. Then it had become violet, and cinnamon; transformed from a gleaming haze to electric existence, sharp and wild and _seen_ , every layer of charoite a twisting, vibrant burn beneath his lids. Cinnamon had become herbs plucked from mountain paths (weathered, twisting, ancient); mountain paths had turned to winter storms, and storms had become crackling firelight, smoke and tarragon and sage and _alive_ —and now Kurogane breathes it in with a comfort slowly grown, feels the sting of gold and inhuman and _predator_ slither over his shoulders like a well-worn cloak, a shiver chasing pleasant down his spine.

A smile curls at his mouth. He does little to conceal it.

(This, more than anything, is _home_.)

From afar, his lover draws closer. The hoard of hired samurai broke formation long ago, strict lines separated to gaggling triplets and swarming flocks, and against the sea of silken shoulders, the sight of gold hair is only a distant shock through the wind—but still, it is enough.

Anticipation hums through their manor’s rafters, a flurry of activity following eager whispers and chasing eyes, feet pattering to ready fires and stables and drink. The floorboards are warm beneath his feet where he walks to the terrace edge, the sun's light soaked within them, and pocketed within the slits of his hakama, his fingers fiddle, a nervous tick unable to be contained through his own eagerness as the first faces of their entourage become clear.

“Kakka!” calls one scrawny samurai, face splitting into a wide grin (he’s barely a grown man, much the same as most who had run from the palace walls to accompany them through the hard journey of rebuilding a province from the ground up; they’re all idiots, the whole damn lot of them, but it’s a detail warmly noted—and, as such, Kurogane can’t help the quirk of his brow, or the familiar twist at his mouth, when the address pulls a handful of nearby heads his direction with parroted cheers).

Hooves scatter and geta scuff, actions carried out quickly through quiet commands of a voice he knows as well as he knows the battle wounds on his own skin. Steeds are dismounted and reins traded to waiting servants, weapons stashed and travel robes loosened, the sigh of relief a lasting thing through them all at the promise of relaxation—and it’s hardly a breath before Kurogane’s eyes are caught on fair fingers passing off paperwork carefully obtained, trailing up the sleeve of light travel robes to a glint of starlit hair over a downturned head, a smile on slanting lips, conversation coming muddled and half-heard as those lean legs carry forward—and laughter cuts into a shock of vibrant, haunting _blue_ beneath flicking lashes, when Fai turns his way.

He stops at the base of the staircase (dirtied, and tired, and smiling, and _beautiful_ ), and Kurogane has to keep the ache in his lungs from breaking as his eyes chase from dust-ridden ankle to perking brow, savoring every inch in sight as though a few short weeks had lasted lifetimes. Fai chuckles, a husking thing; there’s a wrinkle in his cheek, dimpling only further through the pause drawn thick between them.

“I take it Suwa hasn’t gotten into too much trouble, without me?” The sound of his voice is a spell in itself, one Kurogane increasingly can do nothing but fall helpless to (even with the knowing that whatever poetry ready to be waxed his way will send his eyes rolling and his breath huffing; even more so with the knowing that he’s _missed_ it). “Though, I suppose her daimyo has made _rueful_ efforts to keep one eye on her, even if distracted with other things.”

“I do have _duties_ , you know,” Kurogane hisses, “Don’t just sit on my ass reading mangayan all day.”

“ _Ah_ —what a pity, that those days are behind you.” Blue eyes glitter, challenging and wicked ( _come here, you smug bastard_ ), and Kurogane looks away, a scoff dying on his tongue, before he smirks, glances back. The stairs creak beneath his weight as he sinks into one heavy step and then another, slow to make his way down; even on fair footing, he’s a full head taller—a tilt placed in fair neck and a knowing gleam in eyes bright as crystal—and the curve that chases over his mouth only widens as he drinks in the sight of his lover before him.

(He’s missed him.

 _Gods_ , he’s missed him.)

“Did you leave the court still standing?” he grouses, one hand unfurling to brush knuckle over pinkened cheek, and it’s a simple thing as any to let that finger tangle through the wisp of spun gold that scatters over blinking lash and draw it gently behind a sharp ear.

“Shook the rafters only slightly, this time,” Fai whispers, and grins. Kurogane _Hmph's_ , mouth twitching; the pressure of his knuckle is a soft thing, where it pools slow into the curve of the mage’s jaw, and Fai welcomes it, smile only growing beneath the kiss of their foreheads, the bump of their noses.

(There’s a moment, quietly savored, of this, and this alone—pulse thudding and throat dry and eyes closed; closeness, and hereness, and _now_.)

“I’m glad you’re back,” Kurogane murmurs, with all the reverence of a common man welcoming something divine to his table. The nudging offer of _upstairs, inside_ is snatched from underneath him, a kiss stolen before he can move (it’s _improper_ , though the mage has built a steady reputation of throwing conventions to the wind); Fai’s grin is bright as the dawn when he pulls away, drinking in the stunned silence of flushing cheeks and wide lashes with some satisfaction.

“Your hair’s still wet, Kuro-sama,” he muses, trailing fingers a familiar prickle over the layers of the ninja’s _kosode_. “Just had a bath, I’m assuming?”

It takes a moment to catch on, throat rippling and eyes caught somewhere on that slanting mouth, but the dimple that ticks over dusk lips is enough to leave Fai quivering. “Mn.” Kurogane drags the pads of calloused fingers in a slow stripe along the line of his lover’s jaw, taking his own pleasure in the shiver that wracks across silken shoulders. “Water’s still warm, too.”

Fai licks his lips. “Well.” His grin splits to bare teeth, cunning and coy at once. “I must say—I’m in _desperate_ need of one.”

“Thought so,” rumbles the man before him—a touch too gloating for his own good, perhaps, but Fai allows it—and the curl of his finger is a subtle thing over fair chin, guiding enough for him to pick up the hint as he turns to lead the way back up the stairs.

It’s a pilgrimage made countless times before, the direction hardly needed. But with eyes glancing upon the shift of muscle beneath white silk, and smile curling soft and warm, Fai doesn’t complain, and follows.

____________________________

_He tastes ash on his tongue, breathes fire through his lungs. Black blood paints his teeth, stains his skin; around him is nothing but shadow, a smoldering current of death and decay, bitter in his mouth, quivering in his toes._

_(It’s not real.)_

_Dead weight clings to his limbs, too forgotten now to be named._

_He can’t think about it. He can’t_ breathe _._

_(It’s not real.)_

_He can still feel the burn in his lungs, when he wakes; still feel the tremble in his bones, after his feet have carried him far into the fields. The moonlight paints silver streaks down the grass that hisses past his knees, its path only half-recalled through scattered breath, aching pulse. There was a well on this knoll, once, frequented often by young mothers and swaddled infants. He almost trips over the stones left behind, the sight of them enough to pull limbs rigid—a weak skeleton of what once was, recognizable still. Like Suwa, itself. (Like him.)_

_(It_ was _real, then._

 _But then is not_ now _—)_

 _His eyes drag from the soil (high, higher still—_ fleeing _). They latch upon the moon and do not stray, even as its shape ripples, nails bitten deep enough to the pound of his forearms to bruise. He squeezes his lashes tight, ignoring the heat that threatens to flee. It takes some effort to wrestle down his breathing, harsh though that it stays._

Something’s coming _, whispers the trees;_ Something’s coming _, cries the wind;_ Something’s coming _, screams instinct within in_. _He can’t wrap his head around what, or why. He bites his tongue hard enough to bleed, sucks in a breath at the sting of copper in his mouth, tearing him back to red, wounded, bloodbloodblood—_

_The touch that hovers over his back startles him enough to knife between his lungs, trembling breath wrenched still and silent. (He shouldn’t be surprised that the mage followed him, his presence clear enough as any; his spirit clings to the closeness of that aura like a child fleeing to sanctuary, but his mind is slower to get there, the nauseous bloat of held breath a drowning wave he slowly, slowly surfaces himself from.)_

_“Kuro-sama,” Fai whispers. It’s quiet, worried. Kurogane shoves a hiss of air through his teeth._

(Something’s coming, something’s coming, something’s coming—)

 _“It—it’s alright,” Fai continues. It takes more than one blink for Kurogane to register when he moves in front of him, painted blue-gray in the low light. “You’re alright.” There’s fear in those bright eyes, too pale and muted against the moon; he has to suppose it’s a fair reaction, given how little he’s let his traumas scatter from his arms—and one part of him lurches tight enough to sting, with the impulse to gather such evidences up again; to recoil, hide, stalk away. (Part of him_ wants _to, even with effort it takes to fight such things down.)_

_He’s not sure how long the hands on his cheeks have been there._

_“Breathe, Kuro-sama.”_

(Can you feel itcanyoufeelit _something’scoming_ —)

_“You’re safe.”_

_He shakes. He breathes. He blinks._

_Fai’s palms abandon the cradle of his jaw, slipping over tense shoulder and wrinkled silks to latch firm to him, the press of his fingers deep enough to bite where they curl over broad muscle, pull down. Kurogane sinks into the embrace numbly, the scatter of his own fingers over that lithe back registering nothing at all._

_“You’re safe.”_

_He can feel his brow wrinkling, feel a streak of warmth flee down his jaw. Callouses trace patterns over the small of the mage's back, their touch rasping in their softness. The hair that tickles his nose smells like the warmth of linen already worn, a touch of vetiver on the skin beneath._

_Fai is still whispering something—voice too small, and breathing too shaken, swallowed slow into something firm,_ urging _—and, gradually, Kurogane ties syllables into words, the accent of his Nihongo light and known, a language years of lazy nights tucked away from squabbling kids and babbling manjūs has slowly nurtured into translation. He fists his fingers tight through the thin silk of Fai’s robes, drags one palm higher to squeeze him closer, burying choked breath and knitting brow into the shoulder that raises to shield them._

_Fai’s touch clings tighter to his back, steady through the dark, and does not let go._

_“You’re safe.”_

____________________________

Water drips in slick rivulets, slipping beaded and slow where his fingers work. They leave ripples in their wake, cast shadows of glistening lines as palm raises to send thumb kneading into the muscle drawn tight where neck and shoulder meet.

Fai sighs, a whisper through the steam as spine melts and head tilts back, a damp curl of golden hair slipping across a pinked shoulder, and its easy as anything for Kurogane to let his fingers follow it; they trace over the warmth of fair nape, nails a gentle scrape as they chase leisurely into hair that glistens pale as moonlight, and his lover hums with all the contentment of a someone offered a silk robe and an overfilled glass of wine after a long day, long limbs drawn lax and breath simmered slow.

It’s not the first time he's given in to such pamperings—and if the shiver of the man within his arms is anything to go by, he won’t be asked to stop any time soon—so Kurogane lets himself indulge; takes his time through every caress of sudsy oils where his other palm travels, head tilting to let nose and lips catch on the cusp of a pink ear. The mage’s hair clings still to a crisp bite of mentha, massaged slow through slick strands earlier, and he breathes it in savoringly, nuzzling slight to the dip of warm skin behind his jaw.

(It’s something that’s grown on him, the scent of herbed oils so often clinging to his skin. Kurogane had spent his youth in halls painted with fragrant sweeps of jasmine and anise, their taste as familiar on his tongue as rice and vinegar; bumping shoulder-to-shoulder with Fai had been another thing, entirely, each dragging trek through apothecaries and spice vendors haunting his clothes with the musk of sandalwood, cinnamon, sage, mint; all heady and calm and cool, like the first sip of a winter wine. It’d made him intoxicated, left him pink in the face with how often he found his spine bending to stand closer, to catch a glimpse of that fair neck and steal a taste of the the skin beneath—and now Kurogane melts within it, lips rasping slow up the bared crest of his nape, enjoying the pleasant coolness that tingles through his lungs.)

“Mh,” breathes Fai, like music where it quivers. The hand not currently occupied in golden hair glides up from steaming water, dragging wet trails in its wake as his fingers spread to trace over puffing diaphragm and flushed sternum, a heavy weight as his palm drags down, pulls closer. Fai follows the touch with an arch in his breast and a flicker in his lashes, words coming like smoke through a downpour. “It makes no difference, how many nights I may soak in that palace— _nothing_ compares to this.”

Kurogane chuckles, a husk of a thing where lips turn to press over damp neck. “You sayin’ you like a rickety old bath, or you just like someone else doing all the work?” The quip earns him a grin over a thin mouth and a tilt of wet hair into his shoulder as Fai lets his head fall back, lashes flickering to blink cattish and lazy upon him.

“I just like _you_ ,” he whispers, rumbling and soft, and turns his head further to brush his lips to the line of sharp jaw above. There’s a skitter of parting mouths, a snag of teeth (Kurogane _Heh’s_ , the sound wrestling deep enough beneath Fai's breast to burn between his lungs), and the kiss comes almost light enough to go unnoticed entirely, if not for the way full and dusk and warm leave his skin tingling from their touch.

Kurogane needs little encouragement, the flutter of breath mingled between them enough in itself; he traces the curves of willowish collarbone before letting his palm descend, the barest scrape of fingertip and nail where his fingers follow pounding heart to thumb over the circlet of pink skin beneath, and Fai’s breath hitches, a thoughtless impulse where his own hand is sent into a wet scatter to slide up the muscle that cords through dark forearm. Air chases quick between the brush of their mouths, blue turned to midnight beneath the glint of gold lashes; Kurogane can’t think, head buzzing and lungs numb, the pressure of wet mouth and fair fingers alike a hazy thing as his hand is guided, a gradual push down, _down_.

He explores on his own (he doesn’t need to be asked twice), and there’s a smirk playing at his mouth and a tease in his voice as his fingers slip beneath the water against skin smooth as silk, fair thighs tremoring wider and breath huffing quick against his mouth as he follows the curve of thin hip, splays through hair soft as gossamer; squeezes slow, drags _up_. “Thought we were supposed to be _bathing_.” Kurogane drinks in every breathless rasp he wrings from the man against him as he turns his head to pepper slow kisses over darkening cheek and tight brow.

Fai’s touch is a half-minded flutter, frozen on the flex of dark muscle and tendon; it finds its bearing gradually, pulled in an unhurried line over firm elbow and devastatingly thick bicep, the clench of it a deepening bite of scarred fingertip and blunt nail. “What makes you think we aren’t’?” he sighs, grin turned crooked and devilish through the lilt of it.

The turn of his knee comes quick, water a sloshing heat around them as the mage shifts, all gangly limb and dripping skin. He braces himself with one wet palm on the rise of Kurogane’s chest, that broad back jolting quick to the lip of their tub, and cannot resist the urge to relish in how black lashes startle, just wide enough to let bloody eyes gleam where they snap to his own. His other palm finishes its trek over warm shoulder and tilting neck, trailing into hair that drips inkish and raggled where it hangs above the curve of it, like a curtain of night hung to dry against the sun; the touch is a tender thing, twisting slow into raven strands with the faintest pull, and Kurogane’s throat ripples with a swallow, the pierce of ember eyes never leaving.

“I’ve missed you,” is what Fai says, when his words come back to him. It aches more than he means it to, pitches into a realm of bittersweetness he usually takes good effort to avoid, but the man beneath only laughs, low as rolling thunder and soft as faded cloth.

It catches Fai by surprise, the ease with which full lips tilt higher to snatch his own—the molten press of them is none-too-gentle (too trademarked with their impatience, their presence, their _want_ ) as Kurogane kisses him slow. “Missed you, too,” he whispers, tilting into a flicker of lowered lash and a grin that blooms off-kilter where their mouths linger. His thumb brushes gentle over the curve of Fai’s ear, wet hair tucked neat behind the corner of it—and even if the touch (the _tenderness_ ) pulls the color in Fai’s cheeks a full shade darker, the admission turns his smile _wicked_ , eyes glinting impish as he turns closer.

“What about me?” His fingers toy soft through the whisper of it as he drags his nails through dark hair, reveling in the shiver he casts over the man beneath; his lover’s hand stays occupied, callouses a delicious roughness even through the softness of spring water around them, and the drag of its touch (squeezing, sliding, circling) pulls his breath tight and huffing where their lips brush. Kurogane drinks it in far too eagerly (and there are a million things he could answer with— _I’ve missed how your hair looks on the sheets, I’ve missed your singing, I’ve missed your stupid nicknames, I’ve missed your skin_ —but it boils into a ghost of a chuckle, rumbled soft and low through the breath that puffs between them).

“This,” Kurogane husks, met with a snaking drag of squeezing palm that pulls Fai’s thighs taunt and head rolling back, voice tangled into a slithering purr. Kurogane grins, _Heh’s_ again (Fai has some sense to smack him for it, smug as it is), but the action only pulls sapphire eyes darker where they flick down, teeth caught on pink lips as his head bows beneath a scatter of starlit fringe, palms sliding warm and _claiming_ over swallowing throat and muscled chest.

“ _You_ ,” Fai sighs, fond and exasperated at once as their noses drag in a rasp of skin, “Mh, arrogant _brute_.” A kiss is planted on waiting lips, black lashes falling just short of closed as Fai’s mouth wanders, pressing gentle to the tip of his nose; the lucid roll into his touch is encouragement enough, and he keeps the squeeze of his palm a slow thing as his head tilts back, breath catching in his chest as that wicked mouth weaves down cheek, jaw, ear, neck.

“I don’t care whether it’s been weeks, or months,” growls Fai, words hissing through every brand on skin, “I will _always_ miss you. How you look, how you move—” (And Kurogane cannot resist performing for such appraisals, even if the arch of his chest beneath gliding palm is a half-thought thing.) “Your scent,” his lover continues—though the mage is quickly being cloaked by the aura of _another_ , and the thread of gold that knifes through Kurogane’s very being makes his lungs draw tight and his pulse quicken, eyes squeezed shut against the gentle scrape of teeth down the pulsepoint in his neck. “Your touch.” It’s dizzying, too much already when wet mouth parts to a molten stripe of tongue, Kurogane’s breath stripped into a short hitch. “Your _taste_.”

(It’s not Fai talking anymore, an edge to his voice that Kurogane knows too well, one long voyages have kept separate and quiet nights have left unnurtured for enough time to leave him weak-kneed at just the _hint_.)

The burn of arousal in his gut doubles, and he knows the man ( _vampire_ ) above him can sense it, can _taste_ it; Kurogane swallows hard enough to be heard through the stillness, lips parting into a wet sliver of breath as Fai teases his teeth down the line of his tendon with clear intention. “It’s been a while,” he says, slowly, and the knotted slur of it sounds drunk already ( _begging_ ), limbs drawn still and shiverish in anticipation.

Fai hums, an absent agreement that follows another lazy roll of hips into waiting palm. “It has, indeed.”

That mouth lingers (heavy, _burning_ ), before it leaves to pepper slow over the bob of Kurogane’s throat; his head rolls back father, fingers twitching beneath the water before rippling to splay thickly over the crease of Fai's hip, half-warning and half-dragging in their urgency to have an anchor, to _hold_.

“Don’t,” Kurogane bites out, but it’s a hair short of a gasp, swept away with the shake of his breath as lethal tongue sweeps to the other side of his neck, “Don’t get carried away.” (Because they have a meeting later, something reminded in passing steps when weathered robes fell to the floorboards and chasing palms drew those scrawny hips closer, a detail so easily forgotten in the swarm of touch and talk; it’s not _Fai_ he has to worry about—the mage will be fine, composed easily with bloodied smile and lax limb—but it’s almost been too long for him to _remember_ , and the familiar ache beneath his belly only simmers deeper the longer he nurtures it.)

“Listen to Kuro-soft,” Fai chides, a string of kisses weaved delicately over the sharp jaw that tilts farther for him, “Worrying about such small things.”

His weight turns oppressive, his hands greedy; Kurogane falls beneath their their touch with his pulse thudding between his ears, blinking dazed and breathless where his back slumps to the grit of stone flooring, knees sloshing to slide to glistening points above the water. Those midnight lashes startle wider, just enough to let his eyes stutter over the twin gleam of liquid gold that fixes on him with every shred of hunger, want, _predator_ ; a familiar tremble of _prey_ spills across his spine, pulls his breath quickening and the hand in golden hair to a dull _thwunk_ by his head as his lover looms over him, bends closer, eyes fixed like a blade to the pulse that throbs within his neck.

It’s been too long. It’s been too _long_ , and Kurogane can’t think, can’t keep his lungs from shuddering as his hand skitters for purchase, hot breath puffing over the quiver of his breast, his collarbone, his throat. He tries to count down, tries to steady himself, forcing down a hard swallow through the first marking drag of molten tongue (just breathe just _breathe_ —)

The bite comes like a crack of lightning, a sudden, knifing, blistering rush from his fingertips to his toes. Kurogane’s spine arches, drawn tight as a bowstring ready to snap as his head knocks back, his breathing torn clean from him; his knees jolt further, knuckles smacking hard to twist shaking palm into a hissing scrape over the stone above him, looking for anything to cling to as he writhes through the first searing pull. The strain in his spine is met with a splayed palm against his diaphragm, the drag of claws extended just enough to leave his skin quivering, and beneath it, he’s shoved firm enough to knock the breath out of him, the muscles in his back dragged down in a delicious burn.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Kurogane hisses, drawn thin and ragged (it’s rare that he can be overpowered, rarer still that he _allows_ himself to be—but it is beneath these hands and these hands alone that he is so often willing to let himself be neatly picked apart and reassembled, and the jitter of _want_ in his limbs only burns brighter in the face of it). Distantly, he's aware of his nails scraping over stone, his head arching further; the mouth above him bows deeper into a slow drag of smoldering tongue, before a second suckling bite is drawn. Fai takes some leisure in wedging himself into the space that shivers open between thick thighs, and between the slick, steady drag of skin-on-skin and scorching rush through his veins, the pleasure that spikes in Kurogane’s blood is enough to leave him lightheaded.

Fai can taste it, the growl on his tongue a euphoric, vibrating heat against pulsing skin—and perhaps it’s the last straw he needs to strip his control down entirely, to pull one clawed hand to where tanned fingers bite feverish to the flooring, weighing down over thundering wrist and pressing knuckles flat; to drag the hand that scrapes wet over his hip and pull it back by tangled hair, a mirrored hold, strong as steel. Kurogane strains against those shackles, pants shakily through the third pull, unable to keep a strangled keen tethered down; the sound leaves him like silk torn from skin, rattles from his lungs like a prayer, something caught between _Fuck_ and _Fai_ that breaks, hisses, chokes. Those hips roll against him again, a kiss of air carved through his lower back where his spine curves off their bath’s lip to pull them closer, bared to another grinding thrust of slick abdomen and knotted thighs, and he _can’t_ —

Teeth draw from his neck slow as needlepoints, slicked out from red flesh with the rumbling breath of a lion after a kill; Kurogane follows the arch of their release with a hitched groan, thighs jolting tight, chest heaving. Fai’s touch comes like fairylight, a tender thing where scarred fingertips smooth over the callouses of his palms; the kisses that scatter over sluggishly bleeding neck are no less gentle, savoring sweeps of lip and tongue, and Kurogane shudders numbly against them both, breath coming heavy and quick.

“Mm,” Fai rumbles, the heat of friction where their bodies are bound spiking with another slow thrust; Kurogane’s head lolls back with a crease between his brow, relentless to the gibberish that falls like sweet music to pink ears. “You will never know the effect you have on me.” Dark-lashed eyes crack open, bloody-black where his pupils are blown wide, throat bobbing with an open-mouthed swallow, and Fai drinks in the sight with his own shortness of breath before bending down to _devour_ , kiss bloody and drowning. Kurogane pants into the part of it, drags in a coarse gulp of air as one fair hand untangles to chase down the shiver of his bicep, shoulder, sternum, following every ridge of tremoring abdomen into the water beneath. “I need to take care of you, given I’ve been away for so long,” his lover purrs above him, and the squeeze of his own palm down aching flesh rips Kurogane’s sanity into a second blurring wave.

“ _Shit_.” The gasp quivers, high in its softness, and Fai _grins_ (red, and sharp, and _beautiful_ ), tongue a quick line where it smears blood clean.

“Or, maybe I shouldn’t,” the mage murmurs, frighteningly coy, head tilting thoughtfully, “Since we’re so concerned about that little meeting today—”

He can’t finish, the words swallowed as one calloused palm finds the nape of his neck, dragged down into a smothering kiss that leaves his teeth aching. Its twin finds his hip instead, drawn deep to squeeze over the muscle of his flank, and Fai’s breath shivers beneath the heat of it when their mouths part into a scattered pant.

“Don't you _dare_ ,” Kurogane grits out, with a grin that flashes white and eyes hot as embers. Fai takes the interruption gladly, smirk sinful and teeth still pink, and it takes no effort at all for him to coil his fingers through the wet pool of his lover’s hair and draw him up into the heat of his mouth once more.

____________________________

_He hears his mother’s voice, one night._

_He reasons it’s memory tugging at him, again, too much familiarity seeping out of a manor reconstructed—not the same home, but close, save the eclectic touch of travel and stonework that gleams just a touch too bright to not have magic contained within it—but, still, he hears her (whispering through his ears, shivering down his skin), eyes pulled wide as they dart across his shoulder, chase over the ceiling, clatter to the floorboards._

_He swallows down the quickening of his breath. His gaze lands stubborn upon the scrolls unfurled on the matting beneath his feet, willing the tick in his mouth to fade, too much attention needed elsewhere for him to squander it over things unseen._

_Still…_

_(He swallows.)_

_Still—_

(Are you there?

Youou, are you—)

____________________________

Spring brings rebirth, a known fact in any kingdom they’ve set foot in; as such, it comes as no surprise that their elder (a man who reminds Kurogane too much of his father’s right hand; who had left Tomoyo’s family council of his own accord, to offer swatting hand and guiding tongue through the unfamiliar steps of heading a province alone) suggests they make their rounds to visit Suwa’s growing settlements and note their progress.

(It’s bureaucratic, and _boring_ , and the last thing Kurogane wants requested of him— _Should have thought of that, before you decided to become Daimyo_ , Takehiko had chided, pulling a snort from the mage and a burn beneath his own cheeks—but a duty, nonetheless, and one he stubbornly consents to.

Fai offers to keep him company through the month-long excursion— _Have to make sure you behave, Kuro-sama; besides, an advisor should accompany their Lord, ne?_ —and that, at least, gives some promise of enjoyment through the damn thing.)

They’d been children unable to sit still through the lot of it, though. The idiot, true to assumption, had been perfectly fine, after robes were retied and hair squeezed dry; Kurogane had to yank the collar of his thinnest layer high beneath the heavy silks of his kimono to hide the splotching flesh on his neck, and had only been somewhat distracted through the meeting’s spiel. The dismissive flit of Takehiko’s palm after speech had been given and agreements made was taken well enough as permission to _run_ , and Fai’s hand had been a guiding pressure where they weaved with muffled snickers into the fields, like students fleeing a scolding professor.

Sandals are abandoned and stiff robes loosened, once they find a pleasant knoll to lounge on (the play-wrestling over who had behaved the worst before their exasperated mentor is short lived, Kurogane dragged into a heap by bright giggling and accusing squeals), and in the quiet, he twists his thumb through the grass beneath them, mentions Syaoran’s intentions with eyes turned away.

The information sinks in slowly. There's an absent hum in Fai's throat, with the settling of it, eyes tracking the billowing clouds above.

“Sounds like it’ll just be you and me, then,” he sighs, tilting his head back to squint teasingly at the man propped beside him. “For a while, at least.” Fair fingers flutter over the callouses where Kurogane's are tangled with them, curling in to pull tanned palm closer. “ _However_ will you put up with me, for so long?”

A dark brow arches his direction, broad chest puffing into his side with a low _Feh._ “Already been putting up with you, idiot,” Kurogane murmurs. A smirk twitches at his mouth, the rasp of synthetic skin a gentle circle over pale knuckle.

“ _Agh_!” wails his lover, “Kuro-tan, you _wound_ me.”

“Tche.”

There’s a glint in brilliant blue eyes, one he’s quick to turn his own away from. “Admit it,” Fai lilts, “You’re heartbroken over not having little puppies and kitties to look after.”

“Got enough to look after, just with _you_ —”

“Oh, you _are_ —!”

“Shut up.” There’s a growl in his voice, a warning gleam in bloody eyes, but he can feel a smile ticking over his lips, nonetheless. The mage only grins in return, the game of cat-and-dog a well-loved one; his hand untangles from Kurogane’s own much before he can register it, the speckle of willowy fingers coming feather-light and skillful where they flit beneath his jaw. “Oi—quit it!” Kurogane bites out, head jerking away; the mage is anything but thwarted, grin blooming a full shade darker as his hands, unrelenting, scatter down twisting neck, tickle behind sharp ear, chest huffing with a giggle. Kurogane’s shoulders wrench past his jaw, shiverish and growling before those wicked fingers are snatched within his own, knocked firm to the ground; he tumbles to his elbows, a dull _thwump_ of bone on soil, breath rumbling thunderous and with every intent to kill. “ _Quit. It._ ” (He’s chuckling a little, though. He only doubles the fire in his eyes, to counter it.)

“ _Never_ ,” seethes Fai, lashes falling low against the glint of his teeth, and Kurogane just glares, huff falling exasperated through his nose, before he smirks, shakes his head. Calloused fingers raise to brush back the scatter of golden fringe from the mage’s brow, and the curl of that smirk softens (though the dimple in his cheek does not fade, and the warmth in his eyes does not cool); Fai blinks up at him, lashes bright as sunlight framing eyes that swallow him like the ocean’s depths and a summer sky all at once, cheeks quick to bloom pink and startled.

Fai smiles, then (because he, too, cannot last long without diversion), a tease quick to sneak back into his voice. “With your hair tied up like this, you look like a proper ninja, now.” He points to the scattered strands of ink black that spill over twitching brow, the messy knot at the back of his skull a familiar sight ever since unruly hair had grown out too long to be managed on its own. Kurogane cuts up one brow, mutters a low _Huh?_ before stilling beneath the stroke of one pale thumb over his temple; Fai's teeth gleam wider, immediately too impish to be anything short of scheming, and he snags the ribbon through his bun free in a slithering rush. The man above fumbles to rigid silence, raven hair scattering into a raggled downfall about his cheeks. “Mm,” Fai teases, mouth slanted coyly, “But ‘proper’ doesn’t suit you, you know. I like you better rugged, like this.”

It’s Kurogane’s turn to blush, red staining deep into his skin, dark lashes blinking wide. He stares away, stiffly, a wrinkle knitting between his brow; beneath him, his lover only laughs.

“You’ve been out of practice, shy boy,” the mage croons, grin turned wicked and cunning; he flees from beneath Kurogane’s limbs without warning, making quick work of leaping for the swords discarded beside their geta. “Sitting behind papers all day—why, it just can’t be helped; you need a good workout, don’t you?”

“ _Oi_!” Kurogane barks, long after the mage’s own wakizashi has been grabbed with challenging giggles left in his wake—and it takes no effort at all for him to clamber to his feet, Ginryū yanked from the grass with grin sneering devilish, and tear off after him.

“Gonna try to hit me, tough guy?” Fai muses, flipping his blade’s handle into his palm with some finesse. (It’s all fun and games, but the idiot is _strong_ , a fact so often concealed, and Kurogane’s lip twitches only to a further smirk in the threat of it.)

“Give me some credit, bastard.” Ginryū twists between both palms, a warning _shhink_ of steel being drawn, its sheath discarded beneath the bite of braided silk on rough skin; Fai perks one brow, a clear enough invitation as any, and Kurogane grins, _Heh’s_ , before diving into the first footing of attack.

(It’s a dance they both know by heart—the first whistling strike of blade through air is easily avoided as Fai scuffs back on his feet, bares his own weapon before him—but it’s practice practical and _needed_ ; their travels had brought them in the paths of enough gloating swordsmen and assassins alike to leave the threat of death a very real weight in their bones, and the mage had come across its shadow more than once, during his own pilgrimages.

It had taken some convincing for Kurogane to let him venture on his own, only out of his own selfish worries of letting a lover so long shielded from his sight; he knew the risk of letting him handle such threats alone, an image of lethal beauty though he was, hair tied back and silken layers billowing—but the mage had found something worth fighting for (and had defended it, harshly, on more than one occasion), and after spending enough years urging for such a thing to take hold and be _claimed_ (as it now is, pride soaring in his breast and love beating all the more beneath it), he had to reason _he_ , of all people, had no right to refuse him.)

Kurogane twists through his next floating steps, Ginryū sheared down with a huffing breath. The burn in his muscles feels familiar, feels _good_ , where fingers bite firm to let arms sail sharp and free; the jolt of a parry chases up them, burns in his shoulders with the shove of weight into his forearms as Fai scrapes his blade down the etched steel of his own. He’s like air, when he moves—a sight that has always captivated Kurogane, from the first glimpse of battle tactics well-planned, more often than not a challenge to chase, to catch, to pin down. The expected pursuit only draws a grin further over Fai’s face, lithe body melting into a fluid bend away from the next swipe of steel, and Kurogane grumbles, arches Ginryū wide to strike, eyes trained on the bend of lean thighs that leap back to their feet.

It’s an opening the mage couldn’t miss if he tried, the spark in brilliant blue almost insulted; he teases into the space cleared with blade twisted to angle straight for unguarded breast, perhaps a tad too self-absorbing to notice the wicked gleam in bloody eyes. Kurogane chuckles, rolling and dark as the ocean tides at night; from behind his shoulder, Ginryū vanishes, fast enough to pull gold lashes flickering wide, and Fai barely has time to shove out a startled yelp when its blade drives from Kurogane’s opposite side, twisting quick enough to throw him off his feet.

“Don’t underestimate me that much,” Kurogane rumbles, smooth as water on warm stone. His smirk stretches to a beastly thing, cutting a shiver deep into Fai’s bones. “Still got some tricks up my sleeve.”

“Uh- _huh_ ,” purrs Fai, his own grin pulling just a smudge farther as he weaves himself back to his feet. “Give yourself _too_ much credit, and you’ll forget to look out for mine.”

“Che.” Ginryū glints white where its blade tilts, a poor reflection of the knifing snarl above. “Cut the pillow talk; fucking _move_ , bastard—”

Fai has to jerk his arm high, to block the next blow that drives down to him; another swings from the side, steel clanging harsh into a showering hiss, and then another from above, blocked firm over his shoulder. The final hit reveals itself with a thundering roar, Ginryū swung down high (Fai knows this strike, knows exactly where its point will land between his feet)—and it’s instinct more than intention that sends him leaping just the spare height he needs to clap to the blunt edge of its spine, just as steel end grits deep into split soil.

Kurogane gawks, breath ripped to silence (his lover grins above him, ready to claim victory and proud of it), and it’s faster than he can blink that Fai has skittered up the length of that blade like a tightwire to snare free palm into bundled silks and _fly_ , the weight of his fist an iron cuff. He sweeps down in a drowning lurch, grip yanking vicious and stronger than the blood of ten men; the air flees Kurogane’s lungs as he’s swept off his feet, thrown wide enough to send his stomach plummeting before his back drives into a thudding heap through overgrown grass, the rattle of Ginryū’s blade too distant to grasp through the dizzied swirl of his vision. Fai snatches the neck of dragonscaled hilt like a leaf plucked from a flower, circled swift into thin palm to point gleaming and steady below a chin that twitches sharp away from it, and he grins (wild, and glinting, and _deadly_ ).

Kurogane swallows, hard, chest fluttering with the swell of his lungs.

“Checkmate, Kuro-sama.”

( _Bastard_.)

He stares a long moment, stupidly, too stunned to form words right; they come gradually, a gritting huff where his lip twitches, fingering away the steel point wagging still before his face. “You cheated.”

Fai slips his wakizashi into the band of his obi, feigning nothing but innocence as he reaches out his open hand, smiles brightly. “Why, I didn’t use a _drop_ of magic.” That grin slants, self-assured and well aware of it, and Kurogane only glowers as his fingers slowly tangle into the mage’s own, a firm squeeze where he’s hauled to his feet.

“You _cheated_ ,” he presses (pride clearly wounded, but it’s the least that can be expected); the frown at his mouth is traded for a slow smirk, keen and smoldering with its own arrogance as he steps into the space left between them, raising a finger to poke accusingly into his lover’s chest. “Can handle you fine, when you’re just playin’ a slippery bastard, but you had to go and pull your strength on me.”

Fai sighs, wistful in its overdramatics. “You’re just jealous of my _beastly_ strength, aren’t you?” His smile softens, a welcoming tease in the swath of such familiar scolding.

(He doesn’t expect Kurogane to step all the closer, the touch at his chest curling higher to trace collarbone and rippling throat, tucking an unkempt lock of starlight behind his ear.)

“I _love_ it,” breathes his lover, with all the humid, rolling thunder of a storm just out of sight. Fai’s words are torn clean from him, lungs sent into a helpless shiver as he swallows, blinking wide-eyed at the head that tilts towards him, close enough for the heat of his breath to scatter through his own.

Their noses bump, a gentle nudge; full lips, slightly chapped, rasp over the hollow of his cheek, calloused touch slipping from behind his ear to trace down the shell of it slowly—and Fai has to force down a quivering breath when Kurogane's free hand (bones of steel, and wired pulse, and roughened skin that feels no less _real_ ) wanders down the bend of his waist, finding the drape of his sleeve and following it to the hand where dragonscaled hilt is numbly cradled. His fingertips nudge beneath the slits of his own, lips husking over his jaw (Fai’s head rolls back, sigh coming short and eyes squeezed shut), worming between the part of his knuckles in slow drags.

“Give me that,” Kurogane growls, only a breath of a thing in his ear. Shivers spill across Fai’s neck and chase deep into his spine, the release of his touch coming quick on command. He licks his lips, suddenly dry, dragging a short pant between them; his hand chases, scattering down the muscle that ripples in dark forearm, slipping from beneath silk sleeve to trace strong pulse and firm knuckle, left to fall to the broad hip beneath as Kurogane’s own slips away, Ginryū clicking slow at his side. Its impulsive, the need for heat, _closer_ —a hum vibrates where lips close over fair skin, a slow drag down the start of his neck, as Fai’s nails dig through thick silk to draw the broad body before him nearer, moaning through the kiss pressed chaste over the flutter of his pulse.

“Always,” Fai gasps, despite himself, “Always _helpless_ —whatever shall we do with you?” and Kurogane _Heh’s_ , nose dragging sharp over his skin to nuzzle into his hair. “Kuro-soft is just too much to manage,” grumbles the mage, “You need someone to keep you under wraps, before you get too out of hand.”

“Tche,” grunts Kurogane, fully unexpecting; there’s little he can do to prepare himself for the arms that encircle his lower back without warning, the mage’s grin a fearsome thing before he braces palms tight and _lifts_ , fumbling feet yanked a few good inches from the soil. “ _Wh_ —the _hell_ , p-put me down!” Kurogane squawks (having _no_ desire to be hauled off like some fucking _princess_ ); Fai only cackles (like some demented _shit_ ), and takes good effort to tug his lover higher before taking off in a clambering run, barefooted and wild-haired and teeth flashing.

Kurogane coils to him like a snake, helpless to do anything else save _hang on_ , and loudly announcing his unamusement towards the whole goddamn situation; they make it only a few lopsided lopes before his sliding weight drags them both down into a fumbling heap, but the mage springs back to his feet, unphased, to cheer _Last one back is a sour pickle!_ and race away, with all the chaos of some bratty toddler unleashed.

Breath gritting gibberish, Kurogane snatches Ginryū from the ground, has some since of mind to clamber for their geta as well, and thuds off after him, roaring petty threats all the while.

(He wins, of course.)

____________________________

“I’ve never been to the southern villages,” Fai murmurs, long after lamps have been dampened and evening robes tied loose. Rice paper crinkles through his fingers where he tabs through the pages of a journal Tomoyo had lent him, a collection of handwritten notes on Shinto folklore. The weathered cloth of its spine claps to his knees in an abrupt clatter as he raises his head, eyes drawn wide and expectant. “Oh, what are they like? I won’t want to insult anyone—do they have different dialects? What trades do they practice? And what—”

“Slow _down_ , d’mwit.” Kurogane arches one brow his direction, a dull scowl of a thing before his attention flicks back to the scroll unrolled carefully before him. He plucks the stem of the brush that wags in wait from between his teeth, drawn thinly through ink to hover into the first sliding stroke. An impatient puff follows in response, petulant enough to make his mouth twitch. “Keep that up, I’ll have to start callin’ you ‘brat,’ too.”

Fai watches idly as the night’s account of their earlier meeting is drafted into a neat summary, something to be tucked into drawers of archives and detailed further by historians later. “Well?” he asks then, mouth quirking just a touch bemused. His lover huffs, thumb _tap-tapping_ over bamboo spine in an absent rhythm.

“Most settlements follow the lower shore,” Kurogane mutters, “Or the rivers. There’s a few in the mountains—dialect’s different through there, same s’the North.” Ink dries slowly, obsidian trails that curl and shiver with a life all their own as they’re painted into being (– _instructed to travel through province villages_ , Fai idly makes out). “Fisherman, mochiko farmers—”

“ _Mochi_ —oh, we _have_ to have some, when we go—”

“…ukiyo-e artists,” Kurogane grumbles on, interruption ignored, “Kimono makers…”

“Mostly in the valleys, I’m assuming?”

“Hn.”

Fai smiles, propping one arm up on his knee. He admires the man before him, in the quiet—a hulking figure, where he sits near-doubled, the flickering lamplight painting him in shades of aged gold. A softness lingers in parted mouth, even as it twitches closed in concentration; brush ripples between dark knuckles before finishing its final strokes, and he leans back to study his work, hair whispering into a silken rush over one shoulder. Fai smiles gently, each detail of a life nurtured in candlelit rooms such as these fondly noted—silent, strong, every movement drawn steady and still through lax limb and quiet soul alike (lord, leader, _lover_ )—and it’s not long before he looks down, sliding the binding to his own distraction closed.

“Come to bed,” he whispers, leaning his weight into the bend of one palm, “It’s late.”

Bloody eyes flick his way, the fold of their covers already a welcome invitation; Kurogane _Hn’s_ again ( _Hang on_ ) as those eyes sweep back to the page before him, puzzling a moment longer. Stem is clicked again between teeth, to free hands for rolling parchment and sealing shut with fine thread, and then inkwell and brush are doused clean, clacked to the shelves designated for them.

Fai smiles further as lantern is blown out and moonlight is drawn in, a small glimmer through the dark beneath the hush of heavy steps, and he rolls the lip of their cover further for the broad body that slumps to the space left beside him. “In the morning,” he continues, the curl at his mouth softening through the shuffling of the man beside him, a familiar routine of prodded futon and tousled duvet and hissing silk as his lover turns to his side. “We should plan it all out.”

“Tche.” Kurogane leans on one elbow, fixing the blond a pointed _The hell we will_ (the morning would be for relaxation well-due, and nothing else), and Fai mirrors his pose with a teasing grin, head tilting coyly.

“Well, if _you_ won’t, _I_ will,” he rasps, met with a half-roll of blackened eyes through the blue light, and giggles. Kurogane huffs, grousing out something like _Help yourself to it, then_ —but any grit in the tone of it fades through the quiet of his breath, hand raising to poke one knuckle over the dimple in the mage’s chin. A smirk twitches in his cheek, creasing soft through dark skin, and Fai tilts his head just enough with lashes falling to meet the one that bows down to him, the goodnight kiss lasting only as long as a flicker of sunlight through a forest path. (It is no less warm, even gentle as the part of it is.)

Elbow bends and spine relaxes as Kurogane sinks fully into his side, and against the rustle of his breath, broad chest swelling wide and softening slow, Fai turns, nestles back to his warmth with a smile blooming small and a sigh in his own lungs.

There’s no question, when calloused fingers trace over his hip to find his own; no hesitation, when fair fingers spread to welcome the tangle of his touch—and if Kurogane squeezes his hand just a little tighter than usual, keeps the knowledge of distant voices and shivering auras to himself, the mage is none the wiser.

(There will be a time, and a place, to confess how many nights he had woken with a knot in his chest and his mother’s voice in his head, enough early mornings tainted already by shaken breath and clammy skin in the presence of a homeland so frequently haunted.

For now, this—the scent of clean and musk and male and _Fai_ on his nose, where he turns to nuzzle into golden hair; knees nudging into a tangle, and cold toes curling gentle over his own; pulse beating beneath his palm, and lean body curled within him, cradled and warm— _this_ is all Kurogane needs.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _wakizashi_ — a traditional shortsword worn by samurai during the feudal era; when worn with a daitō (long sword), or katana, the pair is referred to as daishō. From the late 16th century on, daishō were popularized and later required to be held by active samurai, and as such became visual distinguishers for class and rank.
> 
>  _mochiko_ — a type of Japanese glutinous rice most known for being the base of sticky rice cake (mochi); it is also used as a thickener for sauces.
> 
>  _ukiyo-e_ — a genre of Japanese art popularized from the 17th through the 19th centuries that were known for depicting various cultural arts of the Edo period, and were major influences to the West’s perception of Japan during that time. The visual style of ukiyo-e heavily inspired and was adapted into the Impressionist and Art Nouveau movements. The name comes from the word ukiyo (“floating world”); ukiyo-e = picture(s) of the floating world.
> 
> * * *
> 
> The role Fai occupies here is a karō (literally “house elder”; top-ranking samurai officials and advisors in service of daimyo), a title he will be referred to as later on. In the Edo period, it was common for a daimyo to have two karō: one in Edo, and one in the feudal domain (or han). The elder advisor referenced in this chapter loosely occupies the kunigarō, or domain-based karō; as such, Fai acts as the Edo-based one. The elder's name being Takehiko is also another nod to the Vagabond series, inspired by its creator, Takehiko Inoue.
> 
> When I started writing this, I noticed Kurogane’s and Fai’s roles in most resettled Suwa stories are built on the premise of Kurogane’s father and mother, with Kurogane as ruler and Fai as priest. I wanted to tip this on its head a bit; the idea of Kurogane being forced into a priest role was my first inspiration to write this, and likewise, Fai having political power is something that will become important down the line. (I also just love the image of him ripping the composure of some stuffy councilmen to shreds, because he would be lethal at it, and would take a good deal of pride in it, too.)
> 
> The sparring scene in the field was initially inspired by [this beautiful artwork](https://ichimakesart.tumblr.com/post/183515056808/finishing-some-abandoned-kurofai-doodles-3) by ichimakesart on tumblr (I love their style to pieces, especially their use of color and body language, it's all so aaghgh). I was rewatching scenes from Samurai Champloo on a whim, and [this one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjB9PQ3iWZs) stuck out to me as a reference for their match.
> 
> The next chapter remains one of my favorites. We travel a lot, we meet some OCs, mysterious mystery things happen. Hope y'all enjoy it!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took me a bit of digging, but I figured out how to code translations that you can view when hovered over, so any unfamiliar words can be read as you go along. (I'm hooked on the idea that Ceresian pulls from Russian, so a _lot_ of it snuck in here.)
> 
> This chapter kicks off the first arc! Look forward to a deep dive into shamanism, magic, and rituals in the future.

The air reeks of rain.

Kurogane keeps a wary eye on the cumulus that billow over the horizon, a dull ache in his shoulder that little effort can relieve; he rolls out tense muscle nonetheless, bones crackling and synthetic nerves stinging, a wrinkle in his brow and a rustle in his breath—a ghost of wounds old enough now to feel forgotten, and all the more present, as a result.

(Every given landing in Piffle’s glass halls had only swept further tirades of advancements over their heads, endless progressions in robotics and automated medicalization and a whole host of other technological jargon he had no interest in understanding, but there’s no doubt it’s _better_ ; the electric blood in his veins and the warm prickle in his skin had never felt so _real_ , and eerily so—something that world’s Tomoyo had praised herself over ‘til dawn, shoving enough strawberry champagne his way to make the very sight of it a nauseous one.

Still couldn’t thwart away a storm, it seemed.)

“Everything is accounted for, _Kakka_ ,” quips a murmur somewhere to his left; Kurogane glances to where _geta_ crunch through the slow beginnings of their courtyard and black silks sweep into a sheen of knotted ebony, its bun frazzled in the humid heat. The samurai raises back on his heels, scrawny-legged and round-faced—only a boy, and a buffoonish one, at that. Kurogane braces heavy palms to his hips, eyes tracking absent over the smile that twitches oddly at the kid’s mouth.

“And the _bushi_?” he grumbles.

“The, uh—Hideo-sama has them assembled.” A swallow, dark eyes blinking fast. “Sir.”

Kurogane takes some pride in it, the way only the quirk of one raven brow leaves the kid shaking in his shoes. (Hasn’t lost his touch _that_ easy, softened or not.)

“—and from there, we’ll be visiting the river villages, and then the mountains— _oh_ , Ei-chan!” his lover’s voice trills between them, a bobbling flurry down clacking steps ( _Eichi_ , Kurogane belatedly remembers, eyes still a dulled blade on the boy who had fled Edo after them little less than a month ago; they’d found him trailing behind their procession like a stray without a master, hunted out with hardly any effort at all, and skittish as a newborn ever since. The mage, to no surprise, had taken him kindly under his wing; Kurogane, decidedly, had not—doing so was a bridge already crossed, a role too recently shed and too bitter, and not something he cared to spend his free time doting over), and it’s hardly before he can care to turn away that Fai melts into the space beside him, carefully raked gravel scattered beneath his feet, green-robed and hair an untamed tangle down his shoulders.

Kurogane takes one good look at the idiot, the lack of socked toes alone reason enough to send bloody eyes glowering and grudgingly rolled shut. “You…haven’t even finished packing, have you—”

“Ei-chan, _how_ will I survive without you?” wails Fai, “An entire _month_ without our favorite _komono_ —”

“You have to _pack_ ,” Kurogane grits out, ignored still, a slow squeeze groggily settling over the bridge of his nose. “We’re _leaving_ in—”

“— _just a minute_ —you have to promise me that you’ll take care of Take-sama, for us; don’t let him drink too much—” The boy nods like a bobbling doll, mouth helplessly stretched thin. “—you know how he likes to keep his liquor to himself, and that man will drink his bones dry without anyone to keep pace with him—”

“ _Mage_.”

“— _yes_ , yes, _what_ —”

Kurogane flicks a heavy snap of one knuckle onto his lover’s wrist, drawing a yelp and a startle of thin bones as fair hand whips away, blue eyes finally rooted to his attention. He draws in a rumbling breath, fixed dryly to the mouth that wrinkles beside him (and there’s a twitch in his own, and a glow in his eyes that is anything but annoyed—because as much as the mage is a goddamn _fool_ , it’s a flurry of love, _life_ , that had so long been gone from him), and can barely start the huff of his tirade before Fai babbles off instead.

“Yes, I _know_ —I _did_ pack, thank you,” he snips, leaving Kurogane to stare dumbly with teeth clicking shut. “And I am saying my goodbyes, which I would _like_ to do, unlike some heartless people.” Fai reaches with deft fingers to smooth over the creases of his lover’s _haori_ , a navy rich as ocean depths. “Always such a hothead, Kuro-pon.”

“ _Wouldn’t_ be, if you’d—” Tanned hands swat at that touch like warding off a stubborn fly, the effort only landing in an ensnarement between fair knuckles, teeth glinting white at him; he wrenches them away to snap again in a broodish _smack_ , tangled into warm palms all the tighter for it. “Will you— _quit it_ —”

Fai giggles, far too enticed to give up his pawing, leaping like some deranged cat after a firefly; Kurogane tears his hands away again and again, growling out measly threats before wrestling that blond head under the firm weight of his bicep, his knuckles nuzzling roughly into wild hair with something like a laugh in his throat, and Fai _squeals_ , palms clapping frantic to his chest.

“ _Sto_ —staha _ha_ —!”

(Some paces away, Eichi blinks in dumfounded stillness, smile still a frozen thing on his face.)

“Ah, what’s this? Suwa’s leader and his advisor, playing like _children_ ,” tsks a voice belonging to none of them, burring with age and clinging still to a taste of humor; Kurogane shoves Fai from beneath him with a chuckle still in his throat, glared at with pink cheeks and wobbling smile and eyes that gleam brattish and beautiful, and turns to see Takehiko descending their manor’s steps to meet them. There’s a wry grin wrinkling his face, and save the scolding gleam in those eyes, familiar to Kurogane as the scent of incense in his mistress’s shrine—one a deep mahogany, the other clouded and white, a scar cut clean from left brow bone to cheek—there is only warmth in his words. “I thought I was told our province was headed by some of the sharpest in the land, not a couple of wild macaques _._ ”

“Apologies, Take-sama,” Fai whispers, shooting his lover a sharp smirk, “One day, we’ll have this feral creature under control—”

“ _Oi_ —”

“There is _work_ ,” Takehiko reminds, firmly, “to be done—and I will see to it that you _do_ it, regardless of what you choose to distract yourself with.” The jab tears the same shade of crimson over Kurogane’s and Eichi’s cheeks, for reasons entirely different—one, at having such distractions even _mentioned_ ; the other, for being forced to imagine his superiors doing anything distracting from work, at all—and Fai snorts at the sight of them both, hand clapping quick to muffle its sound. Takehiko fixes him a pointed stare and a creasing arch of black brows, fully knowing of _who_ , exactly, was implicated to be the said distraction—giving Fai permission to accompany had been his decision, after all, and with complete awareness of its potential consequences (but of all of them, he knew best how Kurogane behaved when unmanaged—had _seen_ it, long before battle scars had marred him, when that broad body had been still gangly with youth; the reward, considering, held much higher leverage). “Don’t forget _why_ you’re making these rounds.”

For all his silver-streaked hair and peppered skin, the curl at their elder’s mouth speaks the same arrogance of a child set on fighting God—a vibrant trait never lost, whether in tents of council or on battlefields alike—and Kurogane huffs, arms folding in a hiss of silk before him. “We get it, _jiisan_ —”

“I swear upon Amaterasu herself, you’re the same brat you were the day Tsukuyomi received you.”

“ _Feh_.”

Takehiko smirks, a sly crease. “And, yet again, my Kubo never fails to meet expectations.”

(Kurogane, gritting a spiel of pidgin, burns red again.)

“We’ll have our accounts sent weekly,” Fai promises, chuckling still, and offers a short bow of his head, “With something our historians can _work with_ , this time.”

“I can write accounts _fine_ ,” Kurogane hisses in response, bloody eyes a sharp jolt to crinkling blue.

“You write shopping lists.”

“I—do _not_ —”

“They are the image of banality, Kuro-sama.”

“Write them _yourself_ , then—”

The mage is unthwarted, his lover exasperated, their servant speechless and pink, and their elder flicks a quick glance between them all before shaking his head with his own huffing, a wrinkle at his mouth.

“All you need is a good messenger,” Takehiko decides, taking some effort to peer thoughtfully towards their small audience. It’s with a snide grin, and the thudding echo of unnervingly honed strength, that he claps his palm to the breadth of Eichi’s jolting shoulder, Fai’s eyes quick to blow wide with delight and Kurogane already gritting on his heel to stalk away to their steeds. “Say—why don’t you take this one?”

____________________________

A young province had promised fortune for aspirers and swindlers alike, something investors with pockets already full had made quick work of claiming. But Suwa was no regular valley province, and headed by no silver-spooned highborn; the reputation of her _daimyo_ had put con artists out of their skin under the assurance of no gentle execution, and gossip of a golden-haired _yokai_ able to grant a hundred wishes and strike down twice as many men had made such open land a fearsome myth, in its own right.

It had become a home for lost _ronin_ and fatherless children; for discharged assassins and outcast artisans both; young and old, and bright and weary. They had come for protection, for rebirth—for a life under rulership formidable enough to command such respect was, for many, a vow of guidance not easily broken—and, most of all, for quiet.

It’s that quiet Kurogane savors, now, damp air a cold taste in his lungs.

(It’s one of many things he had forgotten, a product of memories tightly ignored, blotted out, no acknowledgement given to the ache left behind. He’d resented them long enough for any thought of them to leave ash in his mouth, a scar of black blood and torn skin and lost mind; convinced himself that was all that ever would be (all that ever _was_ ).

But the bleeding had started, and the sting of poison slowly drawn, and now, now he can _remember_ —for as much as Suwa is a lethal, wild thing, this land is also _beautiful_.)

Clouds rise from the mountains beyond, rolling valleys of white through the green. The chill of midsummer rain pricks in his bones, a whisper of a touch where oil-slicked cloth weighs heavily to his shoulders—and even beneath the mist that pitters over their cloaks, soaking the blood of their banners to earthen red that coils through the wind’s currents; even against the wet blot of fog on their tongues, tainting whistling grass gray-green and winding footpaths wet and weathered, it’s a sight he never wants to leave.

(He’d forgotten how it felt to see _life_ in these valleys.

Death had too long marked them.)

“You’re quiet, Kuro-sama,” Fai whispers beside him. There’s a smile at the mage’s mouth, when bloody eyes cut over to him, a knowing warmth that hardly needs speaking. “I always thought you _hated_ rain—bad for travel, and all that; I remember you giving your fair share of complaining, every time we’d come across a storm.”

“Tche.” Kurogane looks ahead, the glimmer of gold lights a distant beacon through the gray. The slopping clatter of hooves drum a steady beat around them, his fingers caught in an absent circle through the dark mane beneath. “Storms’re one thing.”

“ _Ah_. I see.” His lover only sounds amused; his steed, in retrospect (who _was_ quite fed up with the rain), gives a frustrated heave of wet breath and a great shake of dappled neck, soothed easily with low hum and warm pat of fair palm. Fai glances back to the fiddle of dark fingers, slow to raise to the prick between black brows. “Not what’d you call this, then?”

Ember eyes stay caught on mountain fog and new-green, silent for long enough that Fai tilts his head fully to catch sight of them. “ _Yuugen_ ,” Kurogane mutters, the syllables hanging thick on his tongue; they taste of forest paths beneath his feet and an inked hand guiding his own, soft and bitter and strange, and the mage, understandably, frazzles—it’s not a concept translation has ever required between them, and the crease in his forehead wrinkles further as he blinks forward, rolls the word around his mouth like a bite too large to be chewed.

“I don’t understand?” Fai bumbles at last, eyes thrown expectant to the man beside him. A smirk curls over one side of Kurogane’s mouth, not helpful in the least.

“You wouldn’t.”

Fai huffs out the start of a wail, twisting full in his seat. “Well, _tell_ me—I want to know!”

“Heh.”

“ _Kuro-ku_ —”

“It’s… _being_.” Beneath the hush of rain, his voice softens, rolled into a low rumble where his eyes chase; Fai can do nothing but follow them through the quiet, left somewhere on valley mist and snaking rivers, glimpses of the water’s edge a muted gleam through the leaves. “Being in the world, as it is: outside of your control, moving onward—and all you can do is exist, within it.” Raven brows furrow and dark throat swallows, calloused fingers an unheard rasp where they fiddle still. “It’s…the knot between your ribs, when you watch something leave, and you’re still there after it’s gone.”

Each word settles between them like a scattering of droplets, washed away under the hush to leave only an echoing touch behind.

The mage sits in silence, for a long moment—long enough that Kurogane’s gaze skitters from muddied path to hunt for his own, fixed forward still; golden lashes flicker and pink mouth twitches, an odd light in his eyes. “ _Toska_ ,” Fai whispers, with a ghost of a smile. He’s given a similar stare of confusion at the rasp of unfamiliar tongue, but it’s not enough to pull his own towards it; his eyes stay on the valleys beyond, a gnawing in his own chest only now fully understood (for it was the same felt when the bitter reality of a homeland abandoned had settled beneath his lungs—a separation viciously _needed_ , but painful all the same). “A certain ache, that comes from longing.”

The gales shift, pattering rainfall over their cloaks in short staccatos. Kurogane says nothing, the heat of his gaze still a steady thing; Fai shivers beneath that warmth, draws in a damp breath before sending blue eyes over to him, his mouth stretching at a warmer grin.

“It’s beautiful,” he says, a clear indicator to the rolling hills that stretch out beyond. Kurogane’s eyes are on anything but.

(He doesn’t need to state his agreements, doesn’t even have to make a sound—Fai just blinks beneath the flicker of bloody-brown, a silent response to _who_ rather than _what_ , turning a full shade pink under the flutter of his hood.)

“You haven’t…spoken it, in a while,” Kurogane huffs, throat coughed clear as he turns to their path ahead. Fai spies something like a flush at his neck, stony as his face remains, and can’t resist letting one brow perk challengingly as he bends forward to catch a better look.

“What of it?” The mage’s voice is just short of a croon, curious and lilting deep (for it _had_ been—not truly since Yama, when enough months of forced miscommunication had led to sprinkled babblings of his mother tongue between his struggles to untangle Kurogane’s own—and while they had let practicality put the rolling, deep-lunged silk of his lover’s vowels at the forefront of their pidgined translations, his own language hadn’t been refused beneath firelit nights and canvas wrestled shut).

Kurogane swallows, words burring gruff and indifferent. “Should use it, more often.” (The red in that neck climbs higher, broad shoulders flinching tight.) “You’ll—lose practice on it, if y’don’t.”

( _Lose practice_ , Fai mulls to himself. As if he’d forget a language he was _raised_ with.)

“You like it?” he presses on, brows climbing just a twitch higher. The callout sends his lover floundering, and against hunching shoulders, he grumbles; scoffs out a _Tche_ and nothing else. Fai grins soft to himself, breath caught on a chuckle. It’s a purposeful thing, full in the ninja’s view, that he tilts his head; lashes tip in a thoughtful scan from black-bound heel to dripping hood, and with it, his voice descends like a fallen flame, simmered and soft on the edges. “ _Milashka_.”

Kurogane burns red to his ears. Fai laughs all the brighter, for it.

____________________________

Forests give way to grassland, rolling hills to dewed ricefields, and it’s midmorning by the time they cross the city boundaries. The paddy footpaths are trailed in single file, an unhurried procession through the settling mist, an echo of jingling metal and sweeping fabric left in its wake; more than one _sugegasa_ tips their way, linen sleeves stilling and whispers of _The Daimyo—it’s the Daimyo!_ and _The Master’s karo, too!_ chasing after their heels. Three field hands cast gaping looks to their peers before sloshing from the pools to taper off after them— _What are you doing?!_ hisses one woman, still doubled over the water, _He’ll take your head!_ , and her sister only bites back _I want to hear what he has to say!_ before setting off after the two men already floundering for glimpses over the heads of a dozen samurai.

Four more join them, when they cross the next field, a young boy perched on the village wall staring with eyes wide as saucers before scrambling to follow—and by the time trodden path has hardened to sanded stone, painted gates swung wide beneath the fluttering crest of the crescent moon, a crowd has gathered around their entourage deep enough to echo from the rooftops.

Fai’s brows jolt a little as he glances behind them, flitting over countless faces of curiosity, awe, apprehension. There are rumors towards _him_ , too, heard clearly even beneath the hush of their breath— _I heard he was a spirit from the mountain_ , and _He must be a tenshi_, and _You don’t think he’ll bewitch us, do you?_ , all rooted in the same suspicion he had been faced with upon his first entrance into Shirasagi’s grounds. It’s good natured, he has to remind himself (this world is not _his_ ), but the familiarity still stings at something too harsh to be accepted kindly, something his lover acknowledges well enough with a silent glance over his shoulder and a tensing of sharp jaw.

( _It’s fine_ , Fai says, with a tilt of his mouth. Kurogane pulls his eyes away, breath huffing.)

The mist is only a fine haze when their steeds clatter to pawing stops, wet manes shaken and tails flicking within their plaits. The samurai sweep to their feet first, whispers hushing to silence beneath the scuff of their _waraji_. Eichi descends with them, with all the grace of an infant deer—Fai has to bite back a laugh when his lover cuts the boy a look that could shatter steel, his skinny spine turned wobbling and ankles rigid—and its with a hiss of a growl beneath gritting teeth that their lord steps down from his saddle in a fluid twist, _geta_ clacking sharply over the cobbles. The lacquered tilt of his _jingasa_ is tipped back to hang at the base of his neck, the oiled slick of his cloak’s hood following, and the crowd turns still as rabbits before a kill against the towering shadow of his frame.

(He is weathered, and wet, raven strands frazzled about his temple and knotted thick at his neck, but he is no less _deadly_ —the flicker of midnight lash and crimson eye pull any straining stares to frightening stillness, and the quiet that hangs through them all hardly stirs a breath.)

Eichi can barely take a step towards the reins meant for him before Kurogane is shouldering past, a careless nudge that sends the boy grappling for balance (though his master’s expected it, handing off the leather with just enough time to save him any public disgrace, and the kid flushes all the deeper for it). Ginryuu glints silver where it’s strung to his hip, dragonsnout a flashing snarl beneath the sweep of his silks, and Fai can only shoot him a scolding wrinkle of a smirk before dusk knuckle knocks warm into his knee, palm open in wait. He blinks a little, fights to keep a sting of pink off his cheeks as he slides his fingers down, held in a silent anchor through his own dismounting. The flash of slanting teeth and the knowing perk of one gold brow sit ignored, as Fai squeezes his palm tighter; Kurogane only _Hgh’s_ , stares away, taking little care in acknowledging the slowness of those roughened fingers to fall back to his side.

Any start to the mage’s teasing is torn beneath tapping heels and a hive of bowed heads, mutterings of _Tono_ and shuffling steps, and Kurogane shifts his weight to glance towards their greeter, caught upon crinkling eyes dark as obsidian.

“Suwadono!” their forewoman calls, thin mouth quirking at the corner. Over her shoulder spills hair black as silken ink, tied through intricate weaves from temple to shoulder; crisp layers of jade and wave-stitched labradorite spill over the hand that braces to her hip, bearing muscle that draws deep over sunkissed forearm (and while no _daisho_ sit at her waist, and no battle scars can be seen beneath the grand curl of her robes, Fai has no doubt in his mind the blood of a warrior beats strong in her veins), and the woman tilts her head, eyes dragging quick over the man before her. It’s a slow curve, when her smile flourishes, warm and cunningly sharp. “Some months you leave me to my own, behind these walls—I can only assume you’ve come to see whether my work is satisfying enough, hm?”

“Someth’n like that.” Kurogane smirks a little, too. “You look well.”

“ _Ha_! One can only try, I suppose.” A bow is offered, smile teasing still, and Kurogane gives a short nod in return. Fai is halfway to bowing himself when the woman tsks out a scoff, striding over to him with a fluttering palm. “It’s not needed, I assure you. Must be worth a change in pace, once a while.” One palm shoots out in extension, a wrinkle over thin mouth curling deeper within the hollow of her cheek as Fai blinks baffled at her, his own hand raising numbly to shake it. “Ayame,” the woman supplies, and gives a short squeeze to his fingertips. “You’ll have plenty of time to know me—although _I_ , frankly, would like to know _you_. There’s enough gossip around you to run the canals dry; you’ll have to set these petty records straight for me, unless you prefer being shrouded like a ghost in the night.”

Fai feels a grin at his face long before his laugh falls, eyes cutting quick to his feet before raising to the playful crinkle within his host’s own. “Well, I’d have no objection.”

“As you _should_ ,” Ayame declares, waving a finger his direction. Her eyes flit back to Kurogane, the jewels at her ears sent into a jingling clatter. “He speaks well! A longer work than two years, I’m certain.” Pink rises to Kurogane’s ears. His brow knits, mouth stubbornly folded still. “ _Agh_. Doesn’t matter what title he holds, the man’s shy as a sheep,” Ayame continues, and Fai can do nothing but bark out a laugh.

“I’m well aware.”

“Aha! And what say you to this, _Kakka_?”

“I say we see the _grounds_ ,” Kurogane hisses, “Before I change my mind.”

“ _Gods_ —impatient one, isn’t he.” Ayame turns in a slow procession to scan their samurai, landing on Eichi’s flinching stare with a quirk in one brow. “You there—take it you’re the _komono_ —gather up your fellowmen and take them to my residence, I’ll have you fed and rested come nightfall. A servant of mine will show you there.”

A servant does, quicker than Eichi can grab both his masters’ steeds and follow, and Kurogane makes slow work of falling into step behind the sweeping strides of their host (Fai already caught at her elbow, asking polite questions over village customs that are quick to dissolve into off-topicked snickerings), just as the band of them are led onward.

“Oi,” Kurogane huffs, and Hideo turns with a quick nod, palming the wet tangle of his fringe from his brow (he’s the eldest of their hired ranks, and the one increasingly with the most trust placed upon, honeyed eyes wisened for his thirty-some years). “Keep an eye on the kid, would’ja?”

Hideo puffs out a scoff, smiling even as he leaves. “Sir, when am I _not_.”

____________________________

They fill the afternoon with slow rounds through narrow streets, venturing far into the farmland beyond to nod off to workers that greet them with awed grins, and spend two hours touring the commerce district. Enough artisans huddle beneath the flags of their storefronts to make a city in themselves; each one is proud to flourish their wares, nervous-smiled and child-eyed as they lay out beautifully detailed silks, brandish woodblock prints vibrant as setting suns—a _gyoza_ chef, in one; a candy sculptor, in another—and Fai dotes over every gift with stars in his eyes and praise on his lips. Kurogane mulls in silence beside him, something mild enough to be called curious.

(The dumplings are good, and the candy, if too sweet for his taste, a pleasant enough snack—though he voices none of it, just pokes and prods on, accepting offers only when it is fair fingers handing them off. Ayame flashes him a crooking smile more than once, and he bristles to each one, resorting to avoiding her eyes entirely.)

A temple visit is agreed upon as their final stop before dinner, and the clamor and chaos fade as soon as they pass beneath the _torii_ of the lakeside shrine. Water glitters between the foliage of thick pine, tall enough to cast a chill through the air even against the summer heart; Ayame leads them with silent steps and reverent nods to _miko_ that peer up from their sweeping, and gives some pause to let the men behind her linger after their cleansing, her own breathing stilled. “The summer always claims this place,” she murmurs, more to herself than anything.

It calls to a power that Kurogane feels deep beneath his bones, the sensation of a barrier crossed; the air feels thicker here, tastes ancient on his tongue—a twisting, vicious crawl beneath his skin, that only sharpens the deeper they burrow. He keeps his eyes averted from crimson silk and white sleeve, something uncontrollable knifing into his lungs no matter how many times he’s seen such patterns, since; wrestles them down further against the glare of _komainu_ that guard the inner shrine, a numbness in his fingers he can’t put to words.

(There’s a different feeling, though, when his eyes land on the statue of twin dragons that claim the courtyard’s center, an engraving of vibrant detail mirrored upon the shrine’s oiled rafters. It is _who_ these grounds are meant for—and something like bitterness and peace both coils between his ribs, unable to shake a strange inkling within him, as though he is meant to be here; as though it is also meant for _him_.)

“Guardians?” Fai whispers, idly. His fingers flutter, sinking into a hesitant rasp where one claw bites deep into the pedestal beneath.

Kurogane hums. “ _Kami_.” It’s not the first time he’s seen this snarl etched into stone—not the first time he’s spoken its name, either—eyes fixed upon an unmoving stare that burns beneath his breast. “Ryuujin. Protector of the sea.”

“Ryuujin?” The mage’s tone shifts, a sudden gasp, lilting and bright with recognition. “Like _Hama Ryuujin_?”

“ _Ryuu-ou-jin_ ,” Kurogane corrects, turned silent and still. His lover parrots him easily, accent only a slight tangle on his tongue, but the babble of it goes unnoticed beneath the tension drawn slow into his ankles, the knot that webs within his throat.

( _“—I did promise you, didn’t I? Well, then—which technique did you want to learn?”_

There had been a crest of dragonscale on his armor, this very deity needled into his skin—a symbolic claim to protection, to legacy; to divine birthright, beneath the God of the Sea.

_“The Hama Ryuu-ou-jin!!”_

He’d stared down at him with baffled eyes, wrinkling smile, and laughed. It rumbled past his teeth from the belly of a beast; settled over Kurogane’s shoulders like the sun itself.

It’d been the first time he had seen him, in three months.)

“Kuro-sama?”

He blinks, shoulders drawn stiff. A cough itches on his tongue as he turns away, steps slow to carry him after their host. He can feel the heat of his lover’s eyes (quiet, puzzling, _worried_ ), and for a moment, something like guilt tears through his bones—but it is not something he can face, not something he is ready to _admit_ , a pain gritting too sharp to be welcomed.

(He may have avenged his mother’s death. He had still failed his father.)

They offer prayers and short blessings—a process Fai watches with young eyes, as he always does, before taking careful practice to mimic him—and the weight in his chest only leaves once they cross beneath the _torii_ once more.

“I say we visit the lakefront, come sunset,” Ayame declares, earning immediate approval through a maelstrom of eager questions over any desserts to snag from passing carts. Kurogane follows the thread they weave a good pace or two behind, still too lost within himself to process which turns they’ve made, what is lover is saying, _why_ —

(A tug stays on his skin, a heavy _tick-ticking_ on the first notch of spine that drags his hackles high, something calling him back, claiming, _marking_.

He lifts one hand to drag firmly over his nape, cuts a look over his shoulder beneath furrowing brow. Only the hum of an evening crowd greets him.)

____________________________

“Your belongings are in your room,” comes Eichi’s expected ramblings, not a moment after they’ve ducked beneath the painted cloth of their host’s doorway. “And the _bushi_ are settled. Hideo took a few of his men down to see the water; they told Ayame-dono’s, um…companion, that they’re to be expected for dinner.”

“What mysteries have been planned for us, Ei-chan?” Fai whispers, smiling with soft delight as he toes off his _geta_. The boy manages a small enough grin back, straightening slightly.

“Ah, I think her co—her, ah…”

Fai offers a quirk at his lips and a perk of golden brows. “Mistress?”

“ _Koibito_ ,” Kurogane corrects, only a huff of a thing between his own shoes clacking off to the foyer. Fai blinks at him quietly, the word stowed away with a silent swallow; the ninja moves past them both in a hush of silk and heavy steps, breath a tense thing as one palm loosens the folds of his neckline.

“…Lover,” repeats Eichi, pink as petals. He clears his throat quickly, hands fiddling where they clasp together. “She said there will be plenty of fruit, from the summer harvest, and cold _somen_ —the fisherman brought in their fresh catch special for you, Sir; salmon, and trout, and _ayu_ , and crab—”

“Oh,” breathes their lord, interest clearly peaked; his eyes turn away from a brilliant canvas of Mount Fuji stretched wide before him, it’s fluid detail a clear marker of Hokusai’s work, something like a quirk at his mouth that Fai encourages all the wider with lips snapping shut and a tingle of warmth in fair cheeks.

“And _alcohol_!” crows their host, spilling into the space behind them with silken socks rapidly shed and arms stretching wide. “You mustn’t forget the star ingredient.”

“ _T-Tono_!” Eichi snaps near double in a sharp bow, and the woman before him stares, dumbfounded, before bursting into a bellow of a chuckle.

“Cute one, isn’t he?” Ayame muses, moving past the scuttling boy in a brilliant sweep of glistening robes. “Come—we’ve spent all day on our feet, _do_ have a drink. I won’t let you say no. I insist.”

“I don’t need convincin’,” Kurogane huffs, already following her well into the hall, and Fai trails after his lover with a laugh in his throat, silken feet a hushing whisper on the floorboards.

(It’s with a great deal of flushed squabbling that Eichi is convinced to join them, as well—adamantly so, by their lady—and more than one chilled bottle of _shochu_ is clunked to their table, alongside approving pours from their lord, before the dozen heads of their samurai, and ten or so of their host’s own, clatter around the great table of the main hall.)

The lamps cast a warm haze throughout the room, a glow caught on the sheen of summer humidity still clinging still to their men’s skin; on the beads of moisture that track fat and fast down the necks of their liquor; on the steam that rises from plate after plate piled before them. Kurogane licks the warmth of his fifth or so glass from his mouth (hadn’t taken much to lose count, though the mage had kept his pace every step of the way, more than one skittering touch hidden beneath the table where fair fingers rasped over the curve of thick thigh), and it’s the placement of a brilliant heap of steamed river crab, vibrant enough to look painted, directly in his line of vision that sends his shoulders jumping and his brows bouncing high.

Fai’s attention had, previously, been caught on the dotings of their host—a woman nestled beneath her arm with a laugh like the sun and skin as beautifully rich as damp soil, her hair an untamed curl of ebon waves where it had been freed from its binding, some time ago. It’s only the hush of raw _glee_ from the man beside him that pulls his eyes skittering, the ninja eager as a child in a candy store; three crabs are clacked to his plate, with no head of mind given for the sting of their heat, one leg already snatched between thumb and forefinger to loosen from its joint in a sharp _crack_.

“Haven’t had _these_ ,” mumbles Kurogane, already a muddled thing between a second snapping crack and a sucking of sweet meat from shell, “N’ _years_.”

Fai tries not to be impressed when four other legs are torn through with similar haste, their remains tossed to a growing mountain in less than a minute flat. “Um.” Golden lashes flutter quickly, yanked from the muscle that jumps beneath deadly fingers to an expression that looks _far_ too pleased on a face so often scowling and still. “Shouldn’t we, ah,” he whispers, when his voice crawls back to him, “Well—she’s sent for chefs, to open them—”

“Don’eed ‘em—”

“Kuro-sama.” Fai’s voice pitches just a touch exasperated. “You’ll—good lord, you’ll eat them _all_ —”

His lover blinks up at him with deep, deep eyes—like a flame in a cavern, bloody and bright; a sea of haunting, muddied _red_ that traps the lamplight within them like an ocean traps the sun. “Want s’me?” That expression is far too boyish, caught red-handed and unexpectedly chastised, even with that voice a blunt sting in its own right; Kurogane tilts his head, the scatter of his fringe met with another slick of raven black that cuts clear past his cheek, and Fai has to swallow down something vicious at the sight of it. (He has never been used to this _softness_. It’s a side no time will ever adapt him to.) “It ain’t hard,” Kurogane grouses on, smearing his mouth clean with the back of his hand. “Here.”

Fai, for all his gods-given grace, yelps like a kicked dog when a crab is clacked onto his plate, beady eyes staring accusingly into his soul. “Uh,” he flounders, “I don’t—”

“There is seafood in this damn world that you’ll _like_ ,” Kurogane grumbles, “Won’t know unless y’try some— _so_ —”

“Kuro-sama—”

“Start here.” His lover leans closer—so close, _too_ close, shoulder brushing shoulder and the warmth of his skin like the heat of a coat already worn—and Fai swallows down a throat abruptly too dry, shoulders pinching stiffly to his ears. Kurogane rasps forefinger and thumb around the first claw. “Always work at the joint. Y’gotta twist it back—” _Crack!_ “—to where it breaks.”

Fai swallows, thickly. “Sounds like you have some experience.”

Kurogane arches one dark brow. There’s a touch of humor in his voice, rumbling and dark. “I’ve broken plenty of bones in my lifetime, Mage.” (The implication is nowhere near his own.) Blue eyes startle his way, and he lets a smirk unfurl, a slow curl at one side as he tilts his head, turned back to his work. “Then here,” he prattles on, thumb hooking firm beneath sharp point of one crimson claw. Fai shrinks beneath the placid judgment the disarmed creature fixes him with, feeling for all his wit like an unwilling conspirer in something diabolical. “If you’re careful,” the ninja continues, “It’s sharp, so you gotta—hold it on the sides, like this.”

“Uh-huh,” hums Fai, numbly.

“And if you…get it just right—” _Snap!_ goes the claw, turned gently with it a plume of white meat. “There.” The finished product is wagged before Fai’s face with all the expectation he would pounce; he shakes his head vehemently instead, blown wide-eyed and grimacing at the display of a creature’s, if unlived, suffering, and Kurogane puffs a scoff his way before taking in the reward instead. “If you don’wanna eat it off the damn thing, fine.” That dark throat swallows, a frighteningly strong line of rippling skin and tendon drawn taunt. “All meat comes off bone, _Kisai_.”

(It’s not _Mage_ , not _Idiot_ ; not _Bastard_ , either— _Genius_ rings a familiar enough bell, but its dryness hums with something Fai can’t explain, a trust that he _should_ be smart enough to know.

He turns a little red, beneath it. The ninja had never made a point of expanding his name-callings— _that_ had been stubbornly kept in his own hands, long enough that any jibes from his lover had become as natural as a second name. It had always been biting insults, strung fondly though they were, and nothing else; _teasing_ (soft, and sharp, _tender_ all the same) had never been part of them.)

The flush is examined with another raise of black brow, the next snap-crack of shell not even needing a passing glance as Kurogane lifts the remainder of the claw to suckle off the meat that clings to fine bone beneath. Fai swallows again, eyes stubbornly ripping away.

“Don’t be crabby about it,” Kurogane sneers, and it takes a full cycle of breath for Fai to turn back to him with a look so _astonished_ that his jaw struggles to stay hinged. (The ninja, pun undefended, ignores him). The next sliver of leg—longer here, where it joins the ridge that was once shoulder—is thumbed at the center, slid steadily between the rasp of calloused fingers; Fai watches, distractedly, as its shell bends, cracks, wrestled into a touch far too gentle for so strong those hands. The meat revealed is neatly plucked clean, nearly long enough to match the length of dark forefinger that traps it, and Kurogane eyes the man beside him with something impatient as it is obstinate as he holds the prized jewel pointedly before him. “At least try _that_.”

“I—”

“ _Mage_.”

“Fine!” Fai grits, “Fine.” His own childishness turns him to scowlish pouting as he moves to snatch the bite from Kurogane’s fingers; his hand jolts, caught stupidly mid-air, as his lover beats him to it, the nudge of dark fingers towards his mouth pulling heat in his cheeks and a startled flutter in his lashes. He gawks (because what else could be expected of him?) as Kurogane lifts his other brow in a silent prod, apparently set on the indecency of _feeding_ him. (Not counting that their host had happily indulged in such caregivings for her own lover, for some time now; not counting that their samurai would pass no judgment for the matter—and that more than a handful, most likely, would _encourage_ such a thing from their lord. But _still_ —)

“You gonna take it, or not?” Kurogane grumbles. If his own cheeks cling to a flush just dark enough to be noticed, Fai takes good effort to ignore it.

His mouth falls open obediently, snatched in a bloodied gaze that doesn’t waver; Fai manages a swallow, breath puffing in the stillness as the gift lands in a gentle touch, dropped faint on his tongue. His lips close, rasping on the callous of his finger before it can flee entirely; he _sees_ the shiver that chases up his arm, watches its heat bloom in eyes dark as midnight flame, and Kurogane drags down a swallow himself before sliding his touch from between pink lips, drawn wet and slow over the corner of them before leaving entirely.

Fai finds half a mind to chew. It’s a texture he doesn’t love, immediately, like a clump of quills spilling free—but it’s sweet, surprisingly so. The pleasant contortion of his face betrays him in that, wrinkling brow transformed to meek surprise, and Kurogane gives him a look of such stubborn arrogance that he almost questions spitting the damn thing back out at him.

“So?” _tsks_ his lover.

“It’s…good.”

“ _I told—_ ”

“—me so, yes, I _know_.” Fai shoots the ninja an exasperated scowl. “Happy?”

Kurogane grins. “Be happier, if you’d try somethin’ else.” There’s a meaningful nudge towards a platter of grilled _ayu_ , and Fai’s face scrunches all the further as he snatches an inconspicuous wag of another lump of crab meat from his fingers.

“ _Fine_ ,” sighs Fai, around the bite of it.

(If it’s something to keep such a warm look on his lover’s face, well…he can’t easily say no, to that.)

____________________________

Their promised return to the lakeside brings the company of a drink-flushed Ayame and her giggling lover—introduced kindly by the name of Mai—who Eichi trails behind like a deer caught in headlights. Fai makes quick demand of a reward for his dinner efforts, something Kurogane rolls his eyes at with all the grumblings he can muster—but it’s not long before they hunt down a cart selling sweets at the waterfront, and Eichi beelines to follow them, thankful for the (perhaps ill-presumed) distraction.

Fai wants to laugh at the boy for being so pure-hearted, but more often than not finds himself with a bitter warmth in his chest, such youth a stark reminder of amber-eyed and almond-haired that had so long followed them; it’s the least of his thoughts, when the offer of soy-glazed _dango_ catches his eye, and he points frantically to wrestle Kurogane’s attention at the sight of them.

“’Course you wanna try _this_ ,” the ninja grubbles, along with a half-heard mutter of _It’s just mochi_ , as though the mage had already sampled a thousand such variations (and, quite frankly, _had_ )—Fai only babbles and bemoans further, and Kurogane _groans_ , a seething, unkempt thing, before _yen_ is fished out from the inner pockets of his _kimono_ to jingle impatiently for their vendor, a skewer bought for Eichi, unasked, as well. (The boy stares at the gift like something handed off by God, and Kurogane arches both brows before huffing out _Well?_ , and their page scrambles to take it, nodding quickly all the while.)

In fair enough silence, they lean on the village knoll’s retaining wall, admiring the sunset that gleams in waves of bright orange and gold before them. Against the low light, the lake’s edges taint violent, endless and old where the sun’s reflection glitters upon it. Eichi nibbles over his dumplings in near-silence, too shy to prick up conversation with his superiors occupied; Fai makes no small show of bemoaning over which side to eat from, and his lover glares at him with a look too known to be threatening, a sigh fleeing before he plays the mage’s little game, pointing nonchalantly to the skewer’s left. (He’d been doing that a lot more, Eichi notes to himself, considering that the talk of their serviced men largely surfaced over how their lord had long refused to do anything of the sort; he’d insisted it was only to shut the damn idiot up, and Hideo had convinced them all that he just didn’t want to admit he _liked_ it.)

Their host grows distracted, sharing boisterous talk with a passing merchant, and the further distance almost ( _almost_ ) gives Eichi a passing glimmer of confidence to turn to his lord and comment on the sun’s beauty, this time of year. (Any such impulse flees him; his master is fixed upon his advisor like a hawk, and Fai, none the wiser, only swallows down his first dumpling with fair brow puzzling and mouth scrunched.)

“Y’like it?” Kurogane mutters, after a pause. Fai tilts his head, tongue tracing over his lips thoughtfully.

“It’s…different.” The mage hums, head cocking to the other side in a flutter of silken gold. “Not a _bad_ different—it’s that…savory-sweetness, like you like.”

“Growing on you?” A tick starts at the corner of dusk lips. Fai shoots him a petulant stare; his scowl does little to contain a growing smile, nonetheless.

“…Maybe.”

Kurogane chuckles, throaty and soft. “Thought so.” The brush of pink tongue over teeth derails any further statement, bloody eyes caught upon the motion with a stutter in his own throat. (There’s a moment of stillness, the night air a quiet thing—but Eichi has to blink when his master moves from the stone behind to slide with slow purpose into the space before his advisor, the shift of the air like a punch to the gut; his cheeks are pulled three shades pink and his dumpling almost choked upon, quick to shift his gaze away.)

“ _Ah_ ,” chides Fai, fixing the lower of dark lashes with a vexed stare. He tugs his skewer stubbornly to his chest, his other hand landing in a firm plant on lean hip. “Come to steal some away, I see—here I offered you a taste again and _again_ —”

“Che.” Kurogane draws a full step closer, closing the space off around them to only the wobble in fair ankle and the near-silent click in heavy step, golden lashes fluttering wide. Dark eyes flick between guarded sweet and raising brow before bending his head forward, midnight fringe scattering off his cheek; Fai has to flinch to stand his ground, drawn unexpectedly still against the slight perk of one black brow, mouth falling open in an unvoiced _Ah_.

(Oh. _Oh_. This simply wasn’t _fair_ —)

If the blush on Eichi’s face had been a ripened peach, Fai burns to an ungodly cherry. (Being fed in a crowded room had been one thing, for reason enough that _he_ hadn’t been the one offering anything; being asked to reciprocate like _this_ , publicly, openly—)

“Kuro-sama,” Fai blurts. It sounds _aghast_ , more bashful than anything.

The ninja scoffs, unthwarted, and the mage _stares_ , caught up in a wicked twist of his own game when his lover bends down further, calloused fingers a hush of a rasp where they find the bend in his wrist and _tug_. It’s all Fai can do to let himself be guided when Kurogane stares him down with eyes like simmering coals, head tilting further to find the glazed crest of one dumping; those lips part, a touch deadly enough that the shiver of their contact chases clear from Fai’s fingers to his shoulder, gentle though that it is. Bloody eyes never leave, even with the closing of one slow bite; Kurogane drags the dumpling off with his teeth, lashes tilting with the draw of his head back, _back_ —the cake clings to the skewer’s edge by just a thread, broken easily enough—and Fai loses any sense on how to breathe when a thick tongue laps its prize into his mouth in one swipe. He mulls over his chewing slowly, far too savoring for Fai’s taste, before swallowing—and the heat on fair cheeks feels like a sting from the sun, blue eyes blown wide and baffled. (There’s a little _ngh_ , within that strained voice. Kurogane only smirks at the sound of it.)

It’s with full purpose that the ninja glides his tongue over his own lips, a smudge of glaze left behind, and Fai can’t contain a groan, voice hissing and violent. “ _Kuro-sama_.” Already reddened cheeks flame a full crimson, shoulders draped in patterned silk drawn tight. His lover, only encouraged, offers another raise of dark brow and a curl at his lip that pulls a pinch too devilish to be anything but, raising one thumb to smear over the glistening streak left behind and suck the sweetness from it. “K—!” Fai’s hand lands in a vipered smack over broad shoulder, a poor scold against wolfish snickering. “ _Kuro_! We are—we are in _public_ —”

“Never stopped you, before,” Kurogane rumbles, lingering over the tip of his finger with a widening grin; Fai slaps his hand from his mouth with face all but glowing, and the responding snort can’t be contained, caught within dark throat only to hiss messily through white teeth. It’s after some moment of blue eyes glaring firm away that Kurogane _Heh’s_ , sidles closer, head bent to murmur into the space between them. “One more thing on my list, to care of.”

Fai forgets how to breathe long enough to go dizzy. He composes himself messily, nearly dropping his skewer in his haste to stand right, and hisses out a snarl of _Brute_ , even if it’s long after those haunting eyes have moved away from him.

____________________________

Kurogane remembers Yama as a distinct progression. A landing rough enough to put a shock through his legs. Blue eyes turned black as volcanic glass. Panic at missing translation. Bitten gibberish that had been about as helpful as yelling at a wall. No kid. No _hime_. No _manjuu_.

They’d found shelter in an army who had given only a passing glance before setting a killer upon them. He’d put an elbow to the fool’s ribs and a lethal dig into pounding neck, long before the blow could even be landed. Their king had been impressed. (Fai, magic quivering even beneath the careful folds of his aura, had been eyed for an entirely different reason. Both were promise enough of protection.)

The first month had been bitter, and strange, wedged together into spaces where only quirking brow and shifting hand could indicate _stop, stay, listen_. Fai had kept up his babblings, even if the jumble of his vowels had been, for near all save a handful of traded phrases, indistinguishable. Kurogane had never heard such a language in his life—rolling, guttural rasps of things; light as a morning’s breeze in one moment, sharp as a blade’s point on skin in another. Hearing it in tangents he could do little to untangle had been unnerving. (The silence that fell after the second month had been even more so.)

The battlefield left no room for traded conversation. There was only fire. Only blood. And Kurogane _reveled_ in it—an escape long due, and just as much a _return_ , the weight of a blade and the tacky sweat of exertion beneath his clothes as familiar to him as the scent of summer air. They spoke through instinct, covered each other’s blind spots, two halves of a coin strung together. (Fai had wanted to keep his distance, but there was no choice, here.)

Kurogane had trained his eyes on that body long enough to know what a single twitch conferred; when the skitter of gold lashes meant _Enough_ in one way and _I see_ in another; when the stare of black eyes, demonic and swallowing and strange, had fixed on him with such a heat that no bloom of pupil was needed to understand it’s meaning. The mage had made no efforts to be _subtle_ , from the moment their paths had been forced to twine together; months of solitude, nothing but company with another, had forced an unwilling pact of trust—an intimacy beneath shared tents, whose emotion was only bound to cross into physical.

Kurogane didn’t want to admit how much he waited. How much he _longed_. His eyes tracked lean limbs beneath sun and shadow and firelight both—for they had shared, if unwantedly, the sight of hoarse breath after waking too soon, the blur of tears over traumas unable to be spoken; had listened, and crawled closer, and stared, and _held_ , if only because they were the only ones that could.

(He’d woken with fair fingers around his neck, one night. It was an intent to kill, tendons squeezed down exactly where they needed to be. But the touch was too light, and that expression too torn—something that convinced Kurogane that whatever role the mage had been set to play, _he_ somehow had a hand in it—and Fai had crawled away with shaking head and tense shoulder, not returning until well past moonrise.

He’d denied how the sting (the _strength_ ) of that touch stayed with him. But it burned. It ached.

The mage cared for him, and he—

He _wanted_.)

It wasn’t something he could tether down, wasn’t something he could _hide_ , when the time came well enough—and by the firelight, three weeks into their third month, Fai had backed into their tent with eyes _chained_ and mouth parted—had called to him like a siren calls to a drowning man, with fair hands trembling, caught on his hem of his tunic, _chasing_ —and he had fallen; descended into the depths of his being and happily settled there, nails clawing to the grit of their tent’s center post as he lead Fai back against it, finally, _finally_ giving in to the heat of that sinewy muscle arching against him, the drag of scarred fingertips over his jaw, his neck, pulling down.

(The mage had panted _pozhaluysta_ into his mouth. It quivered, _begged_. Kurogane didn’t need a translation.)

It’d become stifling heat and clothes discarded, nails on his back and golden hair tangled within his fingers, and into the strewn mess of their cots Fai had sighed _yes_ , gasped _khorosho_ , whimpered a jumble of _blyad’_ and _o bozhe_ and _derr’mo._ (Kurogane had heard such praise before. The knotted hiss of the mage’s mother tongue had only wormed beneath his breast, in the face of it; carved a nest of burning flame in his mind, something that refused to let go of that snarling tongue.)

So when Fai arches further into the silk of their shared pillows, breathing out a sound Kurogane had grown to understand as _god_ , it catches him by surprise how rigidly he stills, memory a violent blur within him.

Blue eyes blink through the dark, the beautiful pallor of that flushed chest fluttering with caught breath as he tilts his head to peer down at him. His kimono hisses beneath him, cast open like untied ribbon in their impatience; scarred fingers hush from its folds to find dark temple and splay through raven hair, and Kurogane hums, a rumble of a thing where his lips linger on quivering abdomen.

“Kuro-sama?” Fai manages, already sounding a breath short of hoarse; his lover can only grin, wringing some pride from the fact he had barely gotten his mouth on him to have him so close to breaking. Calloused palms fiture over smooth skin, one climbing over the curve of fair flank, the other gliding slow over tremoring naval and puffing chest to thumb the soft peak of pink above. “Oh.” Realization dawns over Fai’s voice, sinful and slow, a smile crooking at that wicked mouth even as his head rolls back into the pillows. “You— _mnh_ —you _really_ like it, don’t you?”

“Like what?” grouses Kurogane, muddied through a nibble over straining rib; Fai’s breath sweeps out from under him, a husk of a chuckle barely formed.

“ _Oh_ , you beautiful— _ngh_ , you like _hearing_ it.” Blunt nails swirl half-minded patterns over his scalp, and Kurogane glances up the body splayed beneath him, dark eyes caught on his own through golden slits. “ _Mne_.”

( _Me_.)

He shivers, head to toe, at the purr that cords through that roughened voice.

The response pulls a flick of vibrant gold through blue eyes, draws one fair brow arching as Fai bites down a growing smirk ( _he_ wasn’t the one meant to be in control tonight, but still, he can’t resist). Shoulder and neck bend to welcome the slow climb of Kurogane's palm from his breast, mouth still occupied below, an encouraging rasp caught on his tongue when those roughened fingers fan over the swallow of his throat. It’s a warm weight that is no less tender, even beneath the barest squeeze (the pressure puts sparks behind Fai’s eyes and a tingle from his head to his toes, powerless to the quiver that pulls his lashes low, his breath caught.)

“ _Bespomoshchnyy_ ,” sighs the mage, with the same lilting tease that _helpless_ so often carries on his tongue; Kurogane _Heh’s_ through slow, suckling bites, his palm trailing further, the ridge of his thumb caught on parting lips, and the slow brush of wet tongue pulls bloody eyes jolting and trailing mouth still. The gleam of gold turns sapphire to blue tiger’s eye, iridescent and otherworldly beneath fair lashes when Fai closes his mouth around the tip of his finger, beckons it deeper with a trace of molten tongue; Kurogane’s breath strangles in his throat (and it’s an act of payback fairly deserved, but no less _torturous_ ) when wet and warm glide from knuckle to palm. It’s slow as anything for him to twitch hand to life again and drag his touch from the trap of that devious mouth, slid slick to trace the swell of lower lip, and Fai grins, just enough of a slant to let his breath flee him a cold rush over Kurogane’s skin.

The kiss is expected ( _wanted_ ) when any self restraint crumbles from the ninja’s hands into a twisting slide to move closer; the mage puffs a giggle into the catch of their lips, smile blooming wide at the grin that greets him where teeth brush and mouths part. Fair fingers are sent into a deeper nest through the silk of dark hair that spills further from its binding (it will prove a nuisance later, something that will no doubt draw scowling breath and flushing cheeks when hands will have to be freed to wrestle the locks back into place, but it is a bridge yet to be crossed, and so Fai lets himself give in, trailing his fingers through the creased waves of them to free from their hold entirely); silk hisses against silk where his knees slide over firm thigh and broad hip, his own robe disheveling further to bare sun-kissed skin and the state of his lover’s rapidly depleting, and the trace of callouses over bared shoulder is too gentle for him to do anything but sigh pitifully into the mouth that peppers over his jaw.

“You’re so… _soft_ with me,” Fai breathes, head tipped back further with grin bitten and tickled gasps half-formed where teeth and tongue weave down his neck. “ _Always_ —”

“Don’t have to be.” Kurogane’s voice tangles through a purposeful knead of teeth. “If you don’t want me to.” Fai pants unintelligible agreement, gliding palms and twisting thighs both pulling him down, a delicious weight that brings warmth and straining silk and bared skin with it, and Kurogane chuckles into the wet tremble of his neck before tilting to kiss the shell of his ear. “Keep givin’ me ideas, and we won’t sleep.”

“I— _ah_ —c-could live with that.”

“Won’t be sayin’ that, in the morning—”

Any room for bickering is silenced beneath the clasp of fair thighs over firm hips, Fai managing a hoarse purl of _zatkins’_ into the swallow of Kurogane’s throat—there’s a prick of teeth just too sharp to be inhuman here, and a drag of nails drawn pointed enough to sting, and beneath the burn of them both Kurogane submits, manages nothing but another throaty chuckle as he looms further over his lover with a spilling hush of night-black hair. He burrows him deeper into the bedding with kisses claiming every stretch of pale skin in sight, and Fai, grinning through the tangle of silken robe and fringe alike, only draws him closer.

____________________________

Eichi and Fai both morn the loss of Ayame’s company, a warm smirk and a waving palm bidding them farewell through their trek into the valley; Kurogane gives passing thanks to his old rival simply enough, only flashed a further grin for his stubborn lack of lingering. (He can’t put much care into it; there’s more present things on his mind, a nagging sting that the crossing of village grounds heightens like a festering wound refusing to heal. It shivers beneath his skin, gleams from every weathered pass they take, burns the brightest in the shrines their next hosts show off in friendly blessing.

He’s earned more than one look from white-robed _kannushi_ beneath the eaves of inner temples, and no part of him wishes to linger on the lurch such a thing drags from his belly, staggering and sharp with every turn.)

It’s on the last leg of their rounds that they are placed in the company of clear weather and the flickering glows of painted lanterns, the mountain settlement of Konami at the height of the summer season. A festival, to no surprise, happens to begin just a day short of their arrival; the village elder, wisened in his money-keeping and a warm presence to them both, offers to shift the final day of feasting to allow them to join in before they make the long trek north, and Kurogane half-mindedly agrees.

If the air at Suwa’s lakeside had felt ancient, the taste of it here feels _alive_ —a vibrant, nauseating blur of being, light contained in every shiver of forest life to gleam like spirits through the dark, too thick to breathe.

(Fai asks him, more than once, if he’s alright—and that should have been reason enough that he _isn’t_ , given the mage had grown a poor habit of holding his tongue, in such situations—but he pulls on the layers of his _kosode_ in gruff silence, offering only a tense nod through the rasp of patterned _hakama_ being tied shut.)

The crowd is sweltering, and the air dizzying, both picked as the blame for the heat that prickles beneath Kurogane’s skin; it’s the same excuse given for the shiver that tingles strangely in his spine, where they sit, an energy seeping through his robes that claws up every tense of lung to wash down his arms, a tremor in the spread of his fingers where he stares at them.

He swallows, taking good effort to ignore it.

(It’s just the heat. It’s _nothing_.

So he tells himself.)

Fai’s eyes cling to him more than once, the oddity of gifted liquor and piled plate ignored more than enough cause to send his brow wrinkling, and against the murmur of the crowd, his voice sounds like little more than ripples on a water’s surface, where he leans closer.

“Kuro-sama?” A pale hand reaches to touch his arm. Kurogane almost leaps out of his skin. “K—” Fai blinks at him, all worry stripped to a rawness his lover has no desire to see. “Kuro, you’re—you’re not alright, what’s wrong—”

“M’fine,” Kurogane hisses, hand a numb thing where he nudges his knuckles over one temple. They come away with moisture caught between the ridges of them.

“You’re _not_.”

Fai’s hand is a firm weight on his shoulder, its landing hardly felt, and it’s instinct more than intention that sends Kurogane’s palm chasing to snatch it. “I’m _fine_ —”

That first touch is all it takes—a million sensations blur through the pound of his lover’s pulse beneath his own, the taste of his magic hitting him like a needle to a vein, a blistering wave of light, color, sound: he sees a boy with the mage’s face, aura a startling, shocking _blue_ where Fai’s own had blended to become lavender and violet and burning, bright _gold_ ; sees a man unmarked by madness yet, in a world that couldn’t _exist_ , a hundred realities sewn down at once; sees pale and black and vicious, burning _red_ —a sensation of thirst no liquid could ever quench, a burn of _hunger_ no man could survive; an untamable, hellish beast that fixes slitted eyes upon him with a growl like Death himself, hissing in seven voices at once, _You shouldn’t be here you shouldn’t be here—_

“ _Kurogane_!”

Fai doesn’t speak the name often, not since its use had grown so bitterly tainted, but it is enough of a thing to leave him jolting, wide-eyed, scarred fingers warm on his cheek. Kurogane drags in a coarse breath, lost within the fade; its with the slowness of a man fighting through water that he pulls his eyes down to where fair wrist stays trapped within the hold of his palm, thumb a heavy weight over the pulse-point thundering beneath it, and he slides his fingers free, dropped to his thigh like a string snapped, lungs drawn tight as chains.

“Kuro,” Fai breathes again, too frantic to care; his released palm hovers, unmoving where it is left, eyes a searching knife through every inch of the face before him, as though any answer could be found within the prickle of that dark brow. “You just—you _left_ —are you—?” Kurogane can’t even gather the bearing to deny, too shaken to process the words; he pushes himself numbly to his feet, moves away before the mage can reach for him. “ _Kuro_ —”

He almost sends a child toppling, for how suddenly she steers into his path; he has to steel himself to keep from kicking her off her feet, his weight planting into the earth firm enough to leave him wobbling (and the sensation of life and _being_ crawling up his legs is still felt, still _unnerving_ , a dryness in his throat he barely processes). The girl knocks into his leg, barely reaching the height of his knee; tears already muddle honey-brown eyes, a cut beneath choppy fringe seeping blood down her temple (she’s gone off to run for her mother, no doubt, from play that had been too distracted), and against sniffling breaths and half-stilled wails, that small face peers up at him, startled and directionless. Tiny fingers fist in the creases of his _hakama_ , quick to bury muffled whines into the fabric, and it’s enough of a thing, small as it is, to ground him.

He steels a quivering breath within his own lungs, stoops to his ankles to pry the brat gently from his leg ( _Where’s your mother?_ , he distantly recalls muttering, chasing eyes forgotten as the closest of participants around them still at the sight of their _daimyo_ bombarded with a sobbing child); the girl clings to his hands and stares shyly away, mouth carved in a puff of a pout. The tilt puts the trickle of blood clear in his line of vision, seeping thickly down the flushed crest of one cheek, and Kurogane cannot grasp the shivering _tug_ that pulls from the earth beneath him, can barely even register his own actions; it’s a thoughtless thing, when he moves to rasp the callous of his thumb over that droplet, too much habit tied to wound-dressing to do anything else, and the first touch on skin calls upon the tingle in his legs to rush at frightening speed to his fingertips, something previously bound within him tearing free from the shackles of his being.

The blood shivers with a life of its own, an unnatural blur beneath the stripe of red his touch leaves behind; crimson fades to the color of a sea before a storm and midnight sky at once, turned white as the tide when breaking. The mark of injury fades like water filtered through sand, gleaming and bright where it closes, and the girl, thin lashes blinking fast, loses any trace of pain within her.

There’s eyes on him—he can feel them, burning beneath his skin, into the back of his skull; the mother, presumably, races to snatch her daughter with breathless apologies and shy bows—and it’s with unconscious movement that he straightens numbly to his feet. The mage has drawn closer, somewhere behind him, and a boy stands wide-eyed to his left, the woman's voice fretting in strange whispers—but he feels none of it, _sees_ none of it, fixed upon the twitch in his fingers with his lungs in his throat.

The blood on his hand is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact of the day, [Suwa is a real province](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Suwa,+Nagano,+Japan/@36.0352091,138.0473649,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x601c55cc640541df:0xeda76322bde62046!8m2!3d36.0391525!4d138.1140545) (and it is _beautiful_ ). I spent a long time wrestling with trying to make the geography of this fic fit into historical records of the time, but I decided to just add nods to the area, instead. The first village they come to was inspired by the main area of Suwa City, while the shrine referenced pays homage to the Suwa Taisha Upper and Lower Shrines that are positioned on the Southeast and Northwestern edges of the province. During the Edo Period, there was a Suwa Clan who split into two factions: one who acted as Daimyo under the Shogun at Takashima Castle, and one who tended to the shrines, as the family had historically done. (It's an interesting detail I uncovered, and one that led me to turn a curious eye to CLAMP's choice to put Suwa on the map as Kurogane's homeland/lineage. Needless to say, it threw this headcannon into overdrive.)
> 
> Instrumental tracks were on repeat while I was writing this. I had Soul Secret's ['Sweet Life'](https://open.spotify.com/track/2V2KniBSfVfrmXGqzPvHrh) looping through the first sections, and the rest was carried by Sean Angus Watson's album 'If I'm Gonna See You,' especially the track ['Don't Know How To Say This To You.'](https://open.spotify.com/track/2V2KniBSfVfrmXGqzPvHrh)
> 
> I'm in love with the OCs I've built for this fic, and Eichi will definitely play a larger role as time goes on. Takehiko was inspired fully by mystery eyepatch man that we see from Kurogane's past; the nickname 'Kubo' is a play on - _bo_ being a derivative of - _chan_ or - _kun_ , particularly towards little boys. It's a tease that's stuck since Kuro was a child (and is also a shameless reference to _Kubo and the Two Strings_ , because why not.) I pictured Ayame as the lovechild of Lady Eboshi and Anne Lister, and given that I've been watching _way_ too much _Gentleman Jack_ (and am so gay, hecking shit), she's a homage to too many badass women I would die to marry. 
> 
> In the next segment [...]  
> Tomoyo is visited for frantic advice!  
> A new journey is proposed!  
> A magic ritual may take place in the woods!  
> And more shenanigans.
> 
> I adore your comments, and I love to hear every thought you have. Thank you so much for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A stronger content warning for ptsd and panic attacks, for this chapter; it's opening contains heavier-handed descriptions of one.
> 
> Hover translations are going to be a constant from this point on, for new words that are introduced. If a full glossary would be helpful, I'd be happy to put one together!

Fai steers them away from prying eyes as quickly as the snaking footpaths of the crowd will allow him. The pulse beneath his palm flutters, a wild, sporadic thing, quickening by the minute just as much as the tense rattles of breath that come from the man it belongs to—and it’s a sensation he’s familiar with, now, one that ties assurance through his bones as much as it does dread as he clatters open the _shoji_ from their elder’s terrace, strings his lover down polished halls, only dim blooms of lamplight guiding their way. (He doesn’t need them, seeking out the markers of empty rooms alone; it’s the vampire more than the mage that drives them into the first isolated space he can find, the _tatami_ a dull pressure beneath him, their dividers drawn shut in a clattering hiss.)

Something like recognition draws taunt in Kurogane’s bones, muscle twitching alive beneath his hand and jerking sharply away—and for all the worry searing through Fai’s skin, he forces in a breath, slides it out quietly, fair fingers curling slow into his palms.

(He knows what shock looks like, _feels_ like—he had seen enough horrors of his own, to taste its fire in his veins.

He just as much knows the warmth of a healer’s spell, when it’s cast—it’s the only kind of magic he had ever craved; the only kind he had failed to harness, no matter how viciously he tried.)

“Kuro-sama,” Fai begins carefully, drawing down a slow swallow. He’s seen the signs of panic before—woken to it, more than once, that broad back slumped and eyes drawn wide and unseeing, lungs slithering out of control and limbs turned to lead—and the tension strung through his lover’s back is only testament that it is setting on again.

(He’d sensed a healer (a _priest_ ) in the ninja’s aura long before the two of them had ever meant anything. Time had pushed that thought away, had let him see this man only for _who_ , rather than what—but now the sensation prickles through his being again, an unkempt, frantic, feral thing.)

“Kuro-sama, what happened?”

The man before him gives no response; Kurogane stands rigid, breath pitching just a touch too short to follow its normal tide. His hand ( _blood turned to blue turned to white_ ) hovers numbly before him, palm turning to bare upwards, a quiver in the twitch of calloused fingers that leaves his fist unsteady even when it curls shut.

“What _happened_?” Fai pads quietly to his lover, the prickle of matted flooring only a half-felt sensation (they’d left their _geta_ abandoned, he belatedly realizes, tossed off beneath the table for comfort of bent knee and crossed leg alike; it’s not something he can give a living care for, now, though it will prove an awkward retracing later), and against the hush of his steps, Kurogane flinches his head, something close enough to a shake; shifts his weight away with tensing breath.

(It’s more often that not that he avoids, in times like these—most situations where Fai had uncovered him in such a state had been through his own hunting alone, or unintentional awakenings in dark rooms with silence broken—and the beginnings of it, now, only ties something visceral through him, a burn building in blue eyes and a twitch within fair fingers where they bite to the meat of his palms.)

“ _Kurogane_ —”

“I don’t _know_.” His lover’s voice is _livid_ , a coarse rustle of a thing, exposed and entirely unwanting of it.

“What do you mean, ‘you don’t know’—”

“How the _hell_ should I—it just—” Kurogane’s shoulder turns, closing the wall off father; his knuckles are whitened and his breathing is quick, a wrinkle in his brow, and Fai steels his lungs through the frustration building beneath them as he pushes a step closer.

“You healed her,” he says slowly, “I saw it. I _know_ what those spells feel like, Kuro-sama, I have tried and _tried_ all my life to master them.” Another step, thin fingers rasping slow against each other. “Bloodmagic does not awaken overnight—how long have you kept it from me?” Kurogane swallows, mouth stubbornly kept still, and it’s enough of a thing, small as it is, to send Fai’s eyes skittering away. “Have you sensed auras?” he continues, roughened and quiet at once. “Seen spirits? Heard voices?”

The tension strung within that broad back tightens, the barest twitch of muscle in heavy arms. It’s confirmation enough to leave Fai with nails picking at his skin and breath filling heavily within his lungs, even with his lover’s own shortening further.

“When you touched my hand,” he presses on, gritting his teeth through the sting of jealousy and betrayal both, “I know what that was, I’ve seen it before—your being, your _soul_ , it left you.” He swallows, too hoarsely to be kept quiet. “It’s what happens when dreamseers have visions. When shamans speak with the dead.” His eyes cut to the man before him, standing silent still save the quiver of air through his teeth. “Tell me what you saw.”

Kurogane shakes his head curtly, knuckles whitening where his fingers find his sleeves and cling. It’s like gauze over a wound, too thick to see the bleeding, and Fai draws in a sharp hiss of air before stalking further.

“I need to know _who you saw_ —”

“I told you, I don’t—” It’s clumsy, uncharacteristically so, when Kurogane jolts away from the closeness. “— _know_ , I just—” He’s short of breath, lightheaded ( _blood, dark, death_ ), and the hard cradle of the wall into his shoulder comes dizzily, hand a dazed pressure where it claps upon it to steady himself.

( _Not like this not now not now_ —)

Fai’s at his side in an instant, voice a muted hush where blue eyes fish for his own. “Kuro…?”

Air shudders through his teeth and puts a shake in his heels ( _wide-eyed_ ), a knot in his throat too heavy to swallow ( _chest bloodied_ ), and he tries to breathe ( _silver scales wet and warm_ )—but he _can’t_.

( _Not now not now not now_ —)

The touch on his cheek is felt a heartbeat after it lands, and it’s frustration and fear both that sends his hand shoving before he can stop it, a firm dig into the silken chest before him, with all the intention of knocking the mage far enough that the distance would stay between them, a valley carved; rebounding force shocks up his prosthetic, instead, the strength of the vampire an iron wall he only manages to drive scant inches, and he skitters on his feet, clumping to the wall in a stunned mess of knocked ankles and slumping weight.

Fai’s eyes are sharp as steel, where his own jerk fuming to them; fair cheeks hollow with the grit of his teeth, all patience stripped, his voice seething and low. “Don’t you _dare_ push me away, not now.”

Kurogane drags his eyes away, prickling with heat that comes shocked and shamed against the tightness of his breath still; he shifts stiffly to sit on the floorboards from where he is hunched, fingers gritting over their grain and throat drawn into a tense swallow.

“You want to twist things around, fine,” grits Fai (grits the _vampire_ ), the cruel irony of self-reflection one he has no desire to see. “I can play that role, too.” Kurogane draws his shoulders within himself, forces down a quivering hitch of breath where his fingers curl into his silks, refusing to spare a single glance through the tirade. “I’ve had my own suspicions.” Fai bites his nails over his thumb, voice sharpened with each pass like a blade dragged over stone. “I gave you the benefit of the doubt, because I _know_ , Kurogane— _I know_ —but you have _refused_ , every step of the way—” He sucks in a breath, cuts his eyes to the ceiling, squeezes them shut through the strength it takes to ease his frustration. His lover’s knuckles whiten within the folds of his _hakama_ , tremoring still.

It takes Fai a long moment—brow furrowing against the smallest shake of his head, swallow a quiet thing—to cast his eyes down, then away again. He sighs, slowly raising one hand to rub over them.

“Just talk to me,” he whispers. He’s earned no response, drawing only a further clench in his jaw, and he presses out a slow huff before sinking to his heels, cautiously nudged into the ninja’s space. He tries again, cracking, begging. “Kuro-sama, please, talk to me.”

There’s heat in ember eyes—a dull gleam, now, the fire put out, only a stain of dried blood left behind—that wobbles, on the fringes of control being lost; Kurogane squeezes them shut, shakes his head, dragging up one hand to cradle his temple.

“It’s okay,” Fai whispers, leaning closer. His lover sucks in a rattling breath. “It’s _okay_.” A careful touch reaches out to stroke over one broad knee, and Kurogane inhales hoarsely again before forcing out an ugly laugh, its choke watery and thick.

“People always said, as a kid—always told me I had priestblood in me.” He pulls in another heaving breath, the line of his mouth crumbling, his nails digging hard into his hair. “But I didn’t…I didn’t—” Rage tears through those limbs, the only glimpse of fire left; Fai jumps against the sudden pound of bone on meat where his fist lashes violently into his thigh, the sting of its pain ignored. “— _want this_.” Kurogane drags in a coarse whimper, fist unfurling to wrinkle his fingers through his silks, a trembling knife of palm and nail. “This—this _weakness_ , this—” (He can’t breathe he can’t _breathe_ ) “— _fuck_ —”

His voice hitches on something broken and raw, too long unvoiced, and Fai hovers numbly in the space unwillingly opened for him before quickly shaking his head, untangling that hand from dark fabric to cradle within his own.

“You aren’t weak, for feeling fear,” he says quietly. Kurogane’s fingers quiver, digging into his skin; any other flesh would have bruised, bled, yet his own stays unbroken, a silent warmth through the storm. “You aren’t weak, for letting yourself hurt.” Fai tilts his head, doing everything in his power to ignore the way a terrified boy sits before him rather than a shaking man (though it is the boy he must speak to, now, and he knows it, thumb a gentle hush of friction over the shiver of those bones). “You can’t expect buried things to never resurface. _I_ , of all people, know _very_ well of that.”

It’s quiet, but no less sincere; humor trickles into the faintest glimmer of a tease, and it’s enough to pull bloody eyes blearily to him, a prick of a glance before his lover’s gaze falls. His breathing hitches, choked on a scoff that comes too hoarse for so large a man, and the bitter quirk of his lips lasts only a moment before falling, his brows drawn tight.

“What did you feel?” Fai whispers.

Kurogane shakes his head again, clenches his teeth. He sucks in a quivering breath. “My—” (He sees red and white and lifeless and _gone_ ; blood and bile and hand falling limp to torn chest.) “—mother was a _miko_ —” ( _You must—protect—_ ) “—her magic, her—her _power_ , I—”

“Breathe.” Fai’s voice is urgent, bubbling through the waves.

(He _can’t_.)

“Haven’t—f-felt it since— _since_ —”

“ _Breathe_.”

“It was _hers_.”

(The last of her power, poured out through dying breath; eleven years, it had guided him—warm beneath her hands, a glow prickling beneath her being, her soul vibrant and clear as a winter moon—and then it was gone. Lost from between his fingers, like shattered glass.

He’d left with her. He’d carried her, _dragged_ her, well into the night; kept her beneath his arm like a sacred talisman, even as he himself broke, any and all memory of what had followed gone from him, blotted out, reduced to faded glimpses of sensation, sound, _death_ —)

“Kuro-sama, look at me.” He shakes clear to his ankles, instinct screaming in him to get out _get out_ (there are no demons here, but the shock of memory alone is enough). Heat sears beneath his skin and stings within his lungs, a gnawing clamp that forces them only half-filled, not enough air in his throat. The loss of oxygen prickles in his fingers, sinks numbly into his toes, eyes drawn hazily upon them. “ _Look at me_.” Both hands squeezed now—he focuses on them slowly, unable to process where the sudden warmth had come from—and it’s the urgency of that voice that yanks his eyes upward, fixes them on blue pale and deep as moonlit tides. “You’re not there.” (And he _knows_ he isn’t, some part of him bristling still deep within his mind—but it’s too buried to tug to the surface, drowning too quickly to get out a single word.) “That’s done, it’s over— _look at me_ —I’m right here.”

(All he had ever done was kill.

He wasn’t meant to _heal_.)

Kurogane wrenches his fingers away from Fai’s hands, tears himself from whatever promise of acceptance lingers within them (because he doesn’t deserve it; he doesn’t deserve _this_ , not after he failed her—

Not after he failed _him_ ).

Silk hisses in protest as his legs knot up, an unconscious slump that sends him curling, fetal, a child coiled into the shadows; he stays there, seeking out the bends of his knees to let his arms brace shaking and still upon them. His head puddles into the quiver of one forearm, every bone turned rigid, every nerve stinging—and through the dark, he breathes, just _stays_ , lets the choke of a sound too strained to come clean muffle wetly into his skin. (It’s the only one, his breath wrestled viciously down to prevent any further, and the knife wedged between his lungs only leaves his bones shaking all the more against the exertion, terror and rage and guilt an aching burn beneath his lids.)

He can feel the stillness before him, _hear_ the way the mage’s breath stiffens at the distance, the refusal. His heart roars, _aches_ , but he can’t move—not even when scarred fingertips slowly brush his own, a careful curl over each biting nail to pull his fingers from his skin; not even when the warmth of a lean shoulder takes his arm’s place, a firm weight where his head is cradled; not even when his lover tangles into the space before him, with no passing thought given to the destroyed lay of his _kimono_ , settled into an odd mirroring of his own position within his lap. Warm hands slide over his nape, trace gentle lines over the back of his ears, linger in the thick silk of his hair, and Fai takes in a slow breath through his nose, eases it out in a tingling rush over his temple, throat bobbing against the wet streaks that fall silent to his neck.

“I will not let you drive me away, through this,” he whispers slowly, turning to nuzzle into the earthen musk of raven hair. A soft kiss is pressed into its strands. “Just as you refused to let me.” The broad body in his arms stiffens, shaken still, but aware, and it’s enough for the mage to keep on, slow murmurs through each and every breath that lasts just a little longer, fills just a little fuller.

“All my life, I’ve longed for the power to heal,” Fai continues, feeling a swallow against his collar. “The only thing I could do was hurt. But we were two halves of a whole; one blessed with healing, one with sorcery.” Thin fingers draw slow patterns through Kurogane’s hair, the touch gradually copied within heavy hands petering over his sides. “I’m…sure you can draw the lines, between that. Just another reason to leave Yuui behind, and…” Kurogane nudges one knuckle firmly into his ribs, even with a hoarse sniff muffled into the crook of his neck. Fai can’t help but smile weakly in the familiarity of it.

“It’s not my place, to ask what weight you carry,” he whispers. Calloused fingers rasp weakly over the small of his back, slow curls through the wrinkle of his silks. “But realize that you have been bearing my wounds ever since you first knew of them. That was never something I would have asked of you. But I wouldn’t be here, if you hadn’t.”

Another kiss settles over raven hair, a warm stroke of scarred thumb tracing the line of the ninja’s neck. A shiver chases down with the movement, as it always does.

“Syaoran told me, once, about what happened in Recourt,” Fai says, after a pause. “That you told him your wounds were not his to bear.” There’s a moment, small in its hesitation, before the man in his arms hums mutely in affirmation. “You were right to tell him that. He was only a boy. And we both _know_ Syaoran—he’d have obsessed over it for _weeks_. He probably did, anyway.” A _Tche_ falls then, slow through a second sniff. Fai curls closer over him, ankles knotting uncomfortably in the space between slouching back and firm wall, but it’s a pressure he ignores, little care given for the numbness settling in pinched joints as he strokes a hand gently over the back of Kurogane’s neck. “He’s always been a stubborn one, hasn’t he?”

“…Hn.”

Fai smiles bittersweetly. “He got a good deal of it from you, too, you know.” There’s no chiding scoff to that, only lingering silence (because they both know it’s true), and the mage quiets a little before lifting from his lover’s hair. “I know you will be just as stubborn with me, and that you will deny any reason for me to take up your burdens. But I’m not Syaoran-kun, or Sakura-chan. I have been through my own hell. I know the sting that comes with every morning you wake, every night you lay yourself down, when you are the only one to survive.”

He turns towards the man hidden still within the crook of his shoulder, no intention seen of being bared just yet, and sighs gently before nudging his nose into the side of the ninja’s temple, a chaste peck pressed there.

“I realize, now, that part of you pulling me out of the depths was to quiet a guilt you already had,” he murmurs on. “For being unable to do so, before.” The root of it all is thrown into the limelight as simple as that; Fai feels the startled blink of long lashes against his skin, swallows down the heat aching to spill beneath his own lids as he presses a tender squeeze over his lover’s nape. “I’m not ashamed by my own guilt, now.” Kurogane blinks again, slower this time. Breath rustles in his lungs, no longer a tense thing. “It hurts me. It’s still there. But I will not hide it from you.”

Fai’s fingers trace down the start of that broad back, a gentle rub over loosened silk. “ _Anata_ ,” he breathes, a tender hush—and the address comes with purpose, met with a soft brush of lips to his ear that strips all tension from his spine, “Don’t hide from me.”

( _I love you. I’m here. Please_.

It all doesn’t need to be said, carried through that one word enough.)

Seconds pass, slow beats of silence—and there is hesitance still, despite it all—before Kurogane straightens, a gradual shift of drawn shoulders, lifted head. Fai guides him with both palms falling to his collar, offering no judgment for the downcast of his eyes, the wetness clinging still to black lashes, a furrow in his brow and splotchy-skinned where he sniffs short again. Dark cheeks dance beneath the clench of his jaw, and Fai’s fingers slip higher to brush the ghosts of tears from them, another tracking sudden down the pathways left behind; that one he kisses away, a gentle press of lips that leaves raven brow twitching and crimson eyes flicking slow to his own, and Fai smiles tenderly in the face of them.

“You are going to be,” he says quietly, brushing his thumb beneath blinking lashes, one side and then the other, “just fine. And if I’m lying, you’ll have to smack me for it.” A wry smile starts over the curve of his mouth, his head tilting. “Though, it seems like you’ve picked up enough old habits from me, already—”

There’s a half-hearted thud of loosened fist over his crown, Kurogane’s voice a hoarse whisper where his mouth curls. “Bastard.”

(It’s the barest twitch at the corner of his lips, but there all the same. Fai mirrors it, soft as he can.)

The slant in dusk lips falls slowly, a numb pull of exhaustion that follows lowering eye and swallowing throat alike. Fai cradles the sharp curve of his jaw, thumbs a tender circle over tacky cheeks, a soft crease drawn within his own brow as the man before him takes in a breath as if for the first time, eased out thinly past his lips. His eyes slip shut, a slow squeeze where his head bows, temple brushing temple; Fai turns into the touch in silent support, the warmth of his lover’s forehead nudged heavily into his own, the bridges of their noses bumping.

(It’s strange, puppyish. He would have made a comment about stubborn dogs and chiding cats, had the air been different—but he keeps his silence instead, only smiling soft to himself, his hands warm where they rub over the chiseled lines of his cheeks.)

“One of my teachers told me a parable, once,” he murmurs gently, “about a sailor with a thousand fears, who wrote them all on parchment, and stuffed them in a bottle so full it could hardly close. He cast it out to sea, with the hope he’d never see them again. He lived to be an old man—good investments, and a good marriage, and many children. But the tides came back one day, as they always do, and the bottle was washed ashore.” Fai nuzzles slow into the weight against him, tracing his fingers over clenching jaw. “And he tried to bury it, burn it; break it with hammer and sword and spell. But it was enchanted from the sea, and try as he might, he couldn’t destroy it. The magic grew, and grew, until he could run from it no longer. He died a miserable man, with a thousand fears burying him.”

Kurogane breathes slowly, fingers fiddling at the small of his back.

“Not advice I took much from,” Fai says dryly, smiling a little. “Until I met you.” He waits, thumbs a quiet rasp on skin still. “Someday, when I’m strong enough, I will sit down with you, and tell you every fear I haven’t had the courage to reopen. And someday,” he whispers, turning to brush his nose gentle over his lover’s own. “—when you’re ready, you can tell me about yours.”

There’s a swallow from the man before him, a tense of muscle beneath where his palms are laid. It’s a long moment before he nods.

Fai gives him time to process, to breathe, his fingertips teasing through the dark hair at his nape. Slowly, he lifts his head, draws Kurogane’s down, pressing a soft kiss over his forehead. He feels the prick of a furrow twitch in surprise beneath his lips; the ninja says nothing, though—no chiding scoff, no flustered grumble—just dips his head lower to nose into the space beneath his chin, rough hands clinging tighter to his _kimono_.

Fair arms slide around the breadth of his shoulders, the wrinkling of their heavy sleeves ignored, and Fai pulls him closer, a silent permission to hide, still.

(If it is _with_ him, rather than from him, he has to reason it’s a start.)

He chases away the demons clinging to that broad back, turns to rest over dark hair again. It won’t be long before Kurogane will nudge at him to move, rub calloused palms over wearied skin and tug silently towards waiting bedding, but the time for that has yet to come. (It will, sure enough as the sun will rise over the mountains, and he holds to that fact quietly, drawing absent shapes over his lover’s skin.

There is no need to rush, and so he waits, as he so long learned he must.)

____________________________

The night is closed off around them, heavy sheets drawn high and the hum of an incantation leaving flickers of magelight to ward off any twisting shadows through the dark, and his hair is still a strewn mess come morning. It’s something Hideo offers no judgment for, when he strides through the mountain mist to greet him in the manor yard; dawn’s glow spills into a muted haze over their _taisho’s_ shoulders, his head dipping into a short bow.

“The men are assembled for departure, Fai-sama,” he mutters, the lay of his travel robes rippling with the straightening of his spine. “A copy of taxation records was acquired from Kazuo-dono’s scribe last night, when you and the Master were gone. Eichi-kun is keeping hold of them.”

“Good.” Fai straightens out the collar of his _kosode_ , a layer of silken ink beneath the rich olive of his _haori_ ; golden waves whisper over his shoulder with the movement, unkempt from their binding the day before, and he leaves them untouched as his eyes flick up to the warm brown of their commander’s. “We won’t be staying long, once we arrive—I will be speaking with Takehiko-sama privately, and then we will be leaving for Edo. We should only be gone for a fortnight, at most.”

“Edo?” Hideo’s brow furrows. “Has the _Mikado_ requested you?”

A wry smile ticks over Fai’s cheek, a quiet glance raised to the samurai before him before flickering to the shadow of a man on the mountain’s knoll. “There’s only one person on this earth your _daimyo_ will seek council from, above all else,” he murmurs, and can’t resist the start of a fond smirk, even through the jab at stubborn will that lingers beneath. “One day, gods willing, he’ll have more than three names under his thumb—but no matter. There’s something he wishes to discuss with her.”

Hideo’s face softens in recognition, the name of what was once his mistress, too, a familiar taste on his tongue.

“We’ll trust you and Take-sama to hold the fort, for us,” Fai continues, offering a wider smile and a squeeze of his palm over his shoulder. “Have our horses ready; pull Eichi out of whatever kitchen he’s got his nose in—” Hideo snorts at that, head cutting down to hide the knowing slant of his grin. “ _Ah_ ,” Fai croons, and gives a coy tilt of his head, “Too predictable, that boy—make sure nothing of his is left behind either, _ne_?”

“Sir.”

It’s with a silent shift of his _waraji_ and another swift bow that Hideo sets off, and Fai mirrors him with his own turning gaze, fingers prickling against his palms, a breath caught in his throat, before he moves towards the forest edge. Through the mist shine soot-black silks and the loose knot of his lover’s hair, the familiar gleam of Ginryuu’s hilt a half-seen thing under the sweep of his sleeves. Beyond the foliage, under the rising fog, the valley lies in a rolling tide of blues and violets; it’s as if a dragon slumbers within its hills, ancient and endless as they are—countless peaks of scaled spine, curling tail, spread claws—and Fai smiles a little at the comparison he can’t resist drawing, his eyes flickering to the man held within the mountain’s edge, like a sacred token cradled within a giant’s palm. A hollow flush lines his skin still, darkens the rich gleam of its color a touch too ashen, but it is the only marker the night had left on him; those eyes are steady, calm—heavy though they are—lethargy and peace both tangling beneath the soft curl of his breath.

“The mountains are quiet, this early,” murmurs Fai, settling into the space beside him slowly. His palms burrow within his pockets to keep warm against the morning’s chill; dew clings thick to his tongue when he breathes, carrying the promise of midday heat with it.

“Hn.” Bloody eyes glance his way, an absent flick of dark lashes (he’d been silent ever since waking—more silent than usual, at least—and the mage had taken up the speaking roles without question, having no difficulty commanding attention; if their men had noticed, they had asked nothing of it—their lord wasn’t someone to be prodded over for such things, after all), and Fai can only blink when Kurogane _Tche’s_ , something like a curl at his mouth. “It’ll turn to a nest, if you leave it like that,” he grumbles, head nudging towards the frazzled spill of golden strands over his shoulder.

Fai puffs out a laugh, husky still in its waking. “I know.” Blue eyes dart playfully to the man beside him, his chin tipping upward. “It’s too much for me to manage, this early—I’ll simply have to suffer, won’t I?”

“Che.”

It’s unasked, when Kurogane shifts his weight to move closer (but expected, _wanted_ , all the same), those roughened fingers fishing around the inner pockets of his own coat. He brandishes a crimson ribbon, faded and frayed from sun and battle and magic alike, and fair lashes flutter in startled silence at the sight of it.

“How many other old trinkets do you tote around in there?” Fai whispers, a ghost of a smirk where calloused fingertips comb the wisps of golden curls from his temples behind his ears, gentle through their silk. “I never took you for a sentimental one, Kuro-chi.” His lover grunts, half-confirmation, half-dismissal, as he thumbs up the hair at his nape, fiddling in hesitation for only a moment before twisting the strands to a loose bun over his fingers. “You must keep hundreds of _haiku_ , and pressed petals, and rings up your sleeve,” the mage chides on, only shivering slight beneath the rasp of one thumb along the bared dip in his neck. (The words leave dark lashes raising, a swallow through that firm throat before they skitter back down, an odd flush worming beneath his breast.)

“There,” Kurogane huffs, palm sliding to an absent stroke over the the mage’s nape; Fai lifts his hand to inspect his handiwork, knuckles bumping and fingers brushing before hovering over the bunched knot of his hair.

“ _Ah_ —you’ve got us matching, Kuro-sama,” he muses, head tipping back to fix his lover with a teasing grin, “Expanding your repertoire of styles?”

“If you’d rather have the birds in it, fine—”

“Coming from someone who _likes_ it down—” One knuckle flicks into the first notch of his spine, a firm _thwick_ that pulls his shoulders jumping. “ _Ow_!”

Kurogane _Heh’s_ , familiar as anything (and even if the fire is slower to light today, its familiar burn of irritation buried beneath a weariness that shadows too heavily into that face, it is still _him_ , and Fai manages a wrinkling pout all the same for it, as he always does). Still, it’s no warning for the way that smirk loosens at the edges, crisp lines of paper crumpled and smoothed thin, and those long lashes blink slightly before Kurogane’s head tilts, the loose sweeps of his fringe tickling Fai’s cheek where his nose finds his jaw, turns in. The kiss lands on his neck almost soft enough to go unnoticed, but the shock of it shivers through his spine nonetheless, heat flaring sudden beneath his cheeks.

“Kuro-sama,” Fai frazzles, windswept and quick, “We’re—someone will—”

(It’s ironic, coming from an advisor who had kissed his lord full on the mouth upon his return home, in clear view of twenty some manorhands and _shinobi_ alike—Kurogane almost smirks at that, its slant only half-formed.)

“I don’t care,” he mutters, the roughened burr of it gracing the edges of a whisper, and Fai stiffens beneath the warmth of breath and touch alike when his lover’s palm shifts from his neck to cradle the curve of his jaw. The warmth of his temple lingers, only a moment—thumb hushing over the soft curve of his ear, head tilting to a gentle nudge over his brow—before he draws away, and Fai watches with an ache too tender to be voiced beneath his lungs as those ember eyes catch over his own, slip back to the bluish haze of rolling hills beyond, knuckle still an absent rasp over the curve of his chin.

Quiet settles between them again, only the chirp of morning birds and the rustle of wind through the branches, and it’s easy as anything for Fai to circle his fingers slowly around that hand (the one of metal bone and wired vein, its palm once scarred, but no longer), lifting it to press a chaste kiss to his fingers. He’s given no scolding, in response; his lover’s eyes just cast down to his own again, midnight lashes blinking slowly, before hushing his thumb over the warmth of his palm.

Kurogane turns from the mountainside to start the trek back to the manor yard, his touch lingering in a warm squeeze, a small tug, before sliding away, but Fai hardly needs to be asked; he falls into line easily alongside him, slipping his palms beneath his pockets once more.

Through the throng of their samurai, they ready their steeds, trade off quiet commands, and begin the day’s journey home.

____________________________

They grace Suwa’s manor with the sweeping curls of their silks for mere hours, taxation reports and drafted summaries traded off through the clutter of repacked satchels and a hasty meal, and then, with Takehiko’s watchful eye trailing after them, they are off again.

Rain clings to their skin like a curse through the four-day trek eastward—the sort of storms that _were_ a nuisance, heavy droplets that muddied the valley paths beneath their steeds and left the sky-demons chortling at them in crackling rolls of thunder—and by the time they cross the borders of the palace grounds, clammy-skinned and weathered and receptors sparking numbly in tense shoulder, they look more fitting to be wildlings than rulers.

No ninja block their path, however—the sight of golden hair, windswept and dampened though it was, was rarity enough to put a name to the shadow of a man leading the way before him, the glint of gilded silver strung to his hip a well-known marker in and of itself—and it is hardly before the gates have been swung open before them and a stablehand has raced to gather their mounts that Kurogane has clacked to the raked gravel beneath, his reins unceremoniously shoved to the brat near-trampled in his haste. Fai, in any other circumstance, would have given warm bows and tender smiles to the servants that clitter to stare after them; as it is, he has no _time_ (his lover is already halfway across the bridge of the outer moat, the billow of oiled cloth a smoked line through the haze where it spills from his shoulders), and it’s with a similar level of regrettable rudeness that he drops from his saddle and smacks the poor boy in the face a second time with his own leathers, quick to chase after him.

Chambermaids scatter from their path like schools of fish bloom from sharks, eyes drawn wide and startled against the heavy strides of muddied heel and rain-slicked robes alike; more than one baffle of _Kurogane-sama_ is met with bows of dark heads, each one ignored through the maze of lamplit halls that swallow them, every twist and turn a further burrow into paths long traced. A servant jolts a platter of tea from their path sudden enough to leave the cups rattling, one cut corner flattening a young page against the beams with knowing eyes and jumping shoulders as his superiors sweep past, and only one woman earns enough attention to be considered a passing glance, dark lashes fluttering as she stills within the entry of the great hall.

“Kurogane.”

Bloody eyes sweep over ebon brown, Fai nearly toppling into his back at the speed with which his legs still. “Tomoyo-hime, where is she?”

“The West Terrace, by the gardens.” Souma’s brow prickles at a furrow. “We had no warning of your arrival, has something happened—?” Kurogane shoulders past her, offering no reply; she sends a puzzled glare upon his back, skittering sharp eyes over Fai’s short bow as he pads after him.

Down three other halls they weave, steaming curls of soy broth and sweet ginger clinging to their cloaks where they pass the vents of the ground-floor kitchens. Lamplight filters through paper walls like ghosts, beacons through the blur of polished floorboards and painted paneling, and it’s a heartbeat more—maybe two, at most—before they spill into the sharp intersections of the central garden’s surrounding rooms. A sliver of light carves between _shoji_ not fully closed, and the warmth of the presence lingering behind is one Kurogane could sense through any fog.

His _jingasa_ is freed from beneath his chin with one hand; Fai catches the lacquered curve of its edges without having to look, a wet heap of wrestled cloak thrown down after—and while on any other night, he’d have bitten a hiss to his lover and thrown daggers with a petulant scowl, he only accepts them silently, eyes blown wide from weary and apprehension both as Kurogane shifts heavily to his heels. The knot of raven hair at his neck lays a breath short of spilling free, wet tangles that cling to the damp bend of his shoulders, the scatter of his fringe hanging in frazzled waves about his temple where his head bows.

“Enter,” calls his mistress, without need for announcement at all. There’s a pause, conversation unspoken where Kurogane sinks his weight into his knees, a scatter of ember eyes thrown high to the swallow of Fai’s throat (he doesn’t have to be asked, separation needed now—at least for a moment—and his head tilts in the faintest of nods). Kurogane draws back the screens in a smooth hush, rising quick to his feet to cross over the threshold. The _shoji_ is tugged half-closed behind him, a careless nudge of routine; he turns back to his knees, bends near-double a second time with hands braced over the damp silk at his thighs.

“ _Denka_.”

(If his voice is roughened past it’s normal burr, he can’t care to smother it; any shred of sleep had been an unkind spirit to him, lost from him with every passing night beneath firm canvas and travel houses alike, and he knows she can sense it (can no doubt _see_ it), the pass of her eyes like a line of ink drawn.)

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Tomoyo murmurs, smile a soft thing in her words. His eyes raise to hers, the outer screens drawn open enough to let the rain’s hush carry through them, a faint breeze that rustles the fine hairs about her cheeks where she sits. A book lays open in her lap, a passive distraction; she eases it shut, its wooden spine clapping softly. “At one time, I may have dreamed of it—I’m lost playing a regular soul, now.” Kurogane draws in a breath, pressing himself up slowly from his crouch. Tomoyo observes him with quiet eyes for a moment, tilts her head, the ripple of her hair a quiet thing where it sighs over her neck. “That’s…what you came to speak to me about, isn’t it?”

He opens his mouth, draws it shut again, teeth mulling over what words to form. It’s not an easy thing to translate, all of this (even here, even _now_ , he can feel shivers of sensation, too blurred to be tethered down; it’s nothing like the feeling of mountain earth beneath his legs, nothing like the drowning surge of memory against the touch of the mage’s skin, but _still_ —), and he toys his fingers through his silks absently, jaw clenching firm.

Tomoyo studies him for a moment, and the sharp drag of it stings, quiet though she stays.

(Too long, those eyes had seen through him; too long, they had _known_.)

“Come here,” she whispers then, one hand outstretched. It pulls a thread tight within him, draws him to his feet without another word, though slower than he usually would; the pads of his boots hush over the matting as he crosses the room, a whisper of firm steps that leaves his head bowing a second time, heavier in its reverence, it’s exhaustion (four days without rest, without any clarity against the torrents within him; he’d been given no complaints from Fai (sleep wasn’t something the mage ( _vampire_ ) needed, no longer the way his own blood and bone craved it), but four days with nothing but his thoughts had left a clear a mark on him as any).

He catches the hover of her fingers chastely within his own, presses the back of her knuckles into a soft kiss over his brow; mutters _Ojousama_ into the dim space between them, with the same aching quiet too many sleepless nights had claimed on his tongue, when she uncovered him from the shadows.

The title is strange, now, one no longer held—its service was severed in the place of lordships and territorial claims, a line of trust he had long been unwilling to break, even from its first legal binding—and that he has come to her as a servant, rather than a lord, is something she does not tease him for.

The thin curve of her smile is familiar; the cool touch of her palm to his temple, even more so. “You’ve barely rested.” The curl at her lips weakens as he straightens, no effort made to deny it. (There are puddles forming beneath his feet, where the soaked silks at his heels cling, soil and grit caught within their folds; it will leave the _tatami_ stained and wilting come morning, an inconvenient repair to be made, but it’s not something he can give a passing thought to as she takes in the sight for what it conveys, meets his eyes again with too many questions to be voiced.)

Her head turns, a silent nod to the terrace threshold before her. “Sit down, Kurogane.”

His fingers rasp over his robes still. He does.

____________________________

It’s with some luck that Fai manages to acquire a place for the items rapidly soaking through already-damp sleeves, a chambermaid making quick work of toting them off to the launders. From there, hardly any plea needs to be spoken, to have him taken care of; dry clothes and warm tea and the promise of a room already made are comforts enough, and he makes firm (if kind) efforts to deny having the bathhouses warmed for them just yet. (The luxury of it all could wait; they hadn’t come to _relax_ , no matter what puzzled presumptions had been quick to bubble around them.)

As it is, he’s content to wander the halls alone, the warmth of the tea he sips a kind enough comfort through the chill that lingers still in his skin. His hair rests coolly over the back of his neck, left untied to slip in raggled waves still-drying over his shoulders; he toys one hand absently through its ends, draws in a slow breath where his feet aimlessly carry him.

He knows this wing well. Past the gardens, the palace archives, a second home quickly crafted for himself when the first offer of advising had been laid before him; behind them, the storehouses, and further still, the armories; and on the far end, over the ridge of the lower knoll, where raked gravel and twisting pine formed garden paths of their own (a hidden exit buried beneath the floorboards, that led to the outer knolls of the western wall; the wild, trailing expanse of Edo’s gleaming city a breathless sight that had captivated him for more than one seasonal festival, fireworks painting the sky in scattering rainbows of light and the warm press of a muscled chest on his back), was Kurogane’s room, a lamp already lit for them in waiting.

Memory slithers beneath his skin, a helpless lurch towards ancient cherry blossoms and the bittersweet nectar of petrichor and spring air (metal fingers bare and gleaming, where they chased the hollow of his cheek to guide feathered fringe back; silk tearing beneath the drag of his nails (gentle, needing, _please_ ), skin freed to trailing hands, every scar, every pound of pulse, every quiver of want laid between them), and he shuts his eyes slow, curls his fingers tighter about the rippled lacquer of his cup.

Returning, after the fact—cementing their togetherness, their _now_ , a future paved beneath his feet he had never dared to dream of when Kurogane had weaved their fingers slow together and pulled him beneath the palace gates for a second time (only now the promise of home was no longer his, but _theirs_ )—had put an ache beneath his breast that no amount of time spent through these halls could ever unfurl. Now, it leaves a strange warmth between his lungs, bitter and accepting both; pulls a whisper of a smile to his lips, where his fingers hush over the crisp glow of honeyed rice paper to find the polished ridge of its spine, the _shoji_ pulled open into a quiet rattle to bare the room they had rightfully claimed as their own.

It’s familiar, in its simplicity (warm, _safe_ ), the pale covers of a futon already unrolled for them. The taste of black pine and treated bamboo lingers on his tongue, just as it always had—disuse has stripped the familiar tang of midnight air and earthen musk and every subtle curl of _Kurogane_ from it, a stale cleanness that is no less pleasant—and he breathes it in quietly as the screens hiss shut behind him.

He pads past the covers, his shadow painted in a stark wash of violet through the low light; runs his fingers over familiar scrolls painted with thick calligraphy ( _Never took you for a fan of poetry, Kuro-wan,_ he’d laughed once, and Kurogane had glowered and grumbled, as always; he, to his surprise, had quite a collection, too many to count hidden away within polished drawers of mantras and myth and aesthetics, and more than one night spent curled within a mountain of them all, fair fingers pointing over the ticks of unfamiliar _kanji_ to murmur _What about this one?_ ). The hush of the rain calls to him through the outer screens, a cool bite on his skin where he draws them open to the speckled gleam of the terrace, and nestled comfortably on the grating between warm matting and cold grain, he sits, sips, waits.

An hour passes, maybe more. His lashes fall heavy and his tea grows cold, forgotten where his shoulder finds the steady spine of the paneling and rests—yet even through the haze of sleep threatening to sweep over him, he feels the thread of his lover draw taunt within him, closer, warmer, the flutter of his aura (different now, but not fully, not yet) warm as a flame ascending.

The _shoji_ to the hall whispers open, barely heard where they rasp shut, quiet steps striding long and slow towards him—that a man so broad can walk so softly never fails to raise the hairs on Fai’s skin—and his lashes twitch when he stops, just a breath away.

“Thought you might be in here,” Kurogane rumbles, after a moment; Fai smiles when calloused fingers brush gently through the hair at his crown, the strands long since dried where they ripple between them. The warmth of his palm is enough to cast a shiver down his spine, and he hums, soft in his throat.

“You’ve never had to try much, to hunt me down.” Fai's eyes crack open, drowsy and feline where his head tips back into the absent rub of the ninja’s touch. “How did it go?”

Kurogane’s mouth twitches, eyes flicking towards rain beyond; it’s enough, tension not quite gone from his shoulders, to speak to too many thoughts to be untangled clearly, and Fai hums again. He’s slow to come to his feet, limbs still lax with the temptation of rest, but there are other priorities to be met beforehand, and he hints towards that fact with a mute nod. “Tell me in the morning,” he murmurs, stepping closer beneath the hand that slips from his nape to settle warmly over the dip in his waist. “I need you bathed before bed, Kuro-sama—I won’t have us smelling like a pond, when we wake.”

That wolfish mouth twitches, black brows drawing to a furrow at such imagery—but Kurogane _Heh’s_ (more muted than usual, too soft to fit those sharp teeth), tips his head down to bump the bridges of their noses together, a fair enough agreement.

Blue eyes catch over his own, a gentle thing where golden lashes crinkle, and he offers no resistance when Fai weaves his hand down to lead the way.

____________________________

_“It’s unwise, pushing through a downpour like this.”_

_There’s a pointed glance towards his shoulder, an unvoiced prod at other aching pains, and Kurogane grits his teeth, eyes chasing towards the open terrace. Any stubborn burn within his flesh had been ignored, only a passing sensation through the harrowing tremor of something unnamable within him, caged and wild and straining to tear_ free _; still, the prickle of his flesh stings, too numbed by the cold—an ugly bloat of scar tissue that writhes dully with every electric pulse, flesh synthetic and real meshing uncomfortably against the swollen joint beneath._

_He says nothing towards it, distracted by the irritating flood of sensation too long buried through the adrenaline, and Tomoyo’s smile thins as he rolls out his shoulder with a quiet grunt._

_“Tell me why you’ve come,” she whispers. Her hands tighten within her lap and her eyes raise firm to his own, a steady blade that drags the tension in his jaw firmer. It takes him too long to string thoughts together, tongue a useless weight behind his teeth—but, slowly, the words form, his fingers rasping over his thumb where his palm clenches._

_“My mother.” He pulls in a slow breath, swallowing through the directionless wander of his eyes from wet leaves to quivering grass to rain-pattered wood. “When you returned Ginryuu to me, you told me my mother called to you in a dream. What did she tell you?”_

_There’s silence, for a moment, only the whisper of rainfall breathing between them. Soft lashes flicker towards silken feet, too many years held within his princess’s face for one so young, and it’s a look he has no desire to see._

_“That sword is a sacred talisman,” she says quietly. “It was given to your father on his defeat of the warlord Woroti, by the high priest of my mother’s time. His blood is the same blood that beats through Ouwatatsumi’s veins; to bury that sword with your mother would have prevented you from ever laying claim to that birthright.”_

_A breath leaves Kurogane’s chest slowly, restrained._

_“I_ know _of my father’s birthright.” Muscle ripples in his cheek, a crease between his brow. “I’ve carried dragonblood in me, my whole life;_ fought _with it, my whole life—what about my_ mother _?”_

_Tomoyo’s eyes raise silently towards his own, turned away still, a steady flame where they stare through the storm. “Your mother was a priestess. As her mother was, and her mother before her. Just as I am a priestess, of my mother’s blood.” She watches as he swallows, the wrinkle of his brow deepening. “My divination was always a part of me, but it’s not a power all healers are born with. Only dreamseers can walk the footpaths of other dreamseers.”_

_A slow hitch eases from heavy lungs, calloused fingers_ tick-ticking _over dragonscaled hilt; Kurogane’s eyes chase towards the rafters, hesitant, his voice catching long before the words are formed. “Did you…ever see her again, in your dreaming?”_

_He can feel the heat of his mistress’s eyes brush over his own, a gentle touch, before looking down._

_“That was the only time.”_

_His eyes sink shut against the string sharply pulled between his lungs. It’s too heavy, the silence that falls; he swallows again, blinks down upon the floorboards, thumb_ tick-tick-ticking _still against silver scales._

_“She told me,” Tomoyo continues quietly, ember eyes yanked towards her own, “that she saw darkness in you. She feared your spirit would never rest, after what she foresaw. I can’t be sure if she knew exactly what would happen, but it weighed on her.” Her lips press, her eyes chasing the unseen path of his own, caught on the haze of gray beyond. “Much the same as it weighed on Fai-sama’s king. Yet, she saw a guarantee of salvation—he did not.”_

_She turns back to the gardens, hushing her palms into a slow squeeze. “I was fearful, too, that your spirit would never grow quiet enough to be at peace,” she whispers. “It was why I sent you away, in the first place.”_

_Kurogane turns away, mouth twitching, the barebones of a curl stripped too raw to feel genuine. “You told me I changed.”_

_He’s given a soft smile, warm as the glow of her voice. “You have.”_

_Calloused fingers curl over his knee, hesitating,_ knowing _. “What do you see, now?”_

_There’s a pause, the air drawn thin between them, and he waits, the curve of her mouth a softer thing still where his eyes flicker gradually to find her own. “A healer.”_

_Steel squeaks in protest under the grit of clenching palm, reddish eyes dropping harsh to the matting beneath them. It’s an answer he expected (an answer he_ dreaded _), and he forces down a tight breath, the flutter of power beneath his skin straining all the further. “I’m a_ killer _,” he bites out, a hiss of thunder through the rain. “It’s all I know how to do—how to_ protect _—”_

_“And yet, you have left yourself unguarded.”_

_Any other words die on his tongue, his eyes startling wide beneath the crinkle of his brow. Tomoyo tilts to meet his gaze, weighted and cool as a stone through a current—a grounding, swallowing darkness that eases the tension in his spine with each slowing breath._

_“You’re afraid of it,” she says gently. Kurogane jerks his head away, a tremble beneath his skin where his jaw tightens. “Why?”_

_(Because he shouldn’t have it, because it isn’t who he is; because it is a power he should have had as a boy with blood on his hands and his mother’s chest sheared open, a power he should have had when his father had kneeled wearied before her, a power he should have had when she had first shown signs of illness, not_ now _; because he_ doesn’t deserve it _—)_

_“Gaining one strength is not equal to losing another,” Tomoyo continues, a firm thing where it whispers from her lips. “No matter how you feel about it, a power awakened cannot be smothered down. Its light will stay in you, regardless of how desperately you try to snuff it out. Letting darkness into your spirit again will corrupt it.”_

_He swallows, the grit of his throat too dry to come smoothly._

_“You have to open it. And you have to master it.” The steel in her eyes strikes him like a dagger, forcing his lungs tight and his blood quivering, and there is nothing kind in the sting of her voice. “If you don’t, it will consume you.”_

____________________________

“She wants you to go north?” Despite every marker of a morning too early risen—blond hair frazzled about sleep-flushed cheeks, steaming tea and sweet rice half-held in drowsy fingers; a heather-gray _yukata_ sitting too large over lax shoulders, threatening to slip off the arc of muscle beneath that fair skin with every breath—it takes nothing at all for the mage’s voice to sharpen to alertness, a wrinkle pinching in his brow. “Why?”

Kurogane pushes air from his lungs quietly, mulling over his own tea as he tips it to his lips, takes in a slow swallow. Fai’s eyes linger on him, expectant, and his own skitter away from them. “The _Ezochi_ ,” he mutters, toying at his cup where it lowers to his knee. The mage’s brow creases further, and he swallows, ember eyes flicking over to find blinking blue. “It’s said we come from the _Wajin_ —ancestors of the first _Yamato_.”

Myth and legend and ethnography both filter through Fai’s mind, unfamiliar syllables knotting into realization. “The native people.”

He’s given a short nod, calloused fingers rasping over his teacup still. “The _Ezo_ were part of them. At one time.”

“And we trade with them, still,” Fai continues. Kurogane blinks, raven brows twitching a touch higher before furrowing. He _Hn’s_ , looks down. Fai tilts his head, hesitating, before murmuring softly, “What does that have to do with you?”

The words catch in Kurogane’s throat, unfamiliar and unwanted still. “This…power I have—whatever it is, I don’t—” He shuts his eyes, just a moment. “I don’t…know where it came from.” His mouth ticks, a twitch of a frown. “It’s my mother’s blood, I know that.”

Fai puzzles over the pieces quietly, slouching further onto his knees. It takes little time at all to fit their edges together, his eyes raising lightly to black lashes turned down. “She ties you to that place.”

Another nod, blood-brown eyes lingering on the strewn covers beneath his knee. “Her mother came down from the mountains, as a girl. She mentioned it, once. I didn’t know her long.” He draws in a slow breath, tapping his nail over the lip of his cup in absent ticks. “Tomoyo thinks it’s…calling to me.”

Returning to a homeland is one thing. Returning to a place of one’s blood is another—a bone-chilling dread weaves uncontrollably beneath Fai’s skin, a harrowing thought of retracing the foothills of that cursed valley, walking the ruins of whatever hell had been left behind after all had been slain, to awaken something buried within him. His lover _sees_ it, as he always does, raven brow wrinkling tight in silent questioning as he dips his head, prying those eyes towards him. It takes good enough effort for Fai to blink, managing a tense smile in answer and nothing else, the air eased carefully from his lungs.

“What will you do?” he whispers, after a moment, clicking his chopsticks absently through his bowl. He lifts a clump of rice to his mouth, a simple enough distraction from the knife of adrenaline that chases heat up his legs.

Kurogane _Hn’s_ again, studying him still. Gradually, ember eyes flick away, following the lattice of the matting once more. “I’ll be setting off, in the morning. Shouldn’t be gone long. Whatever damn thing I need to do, I’ll do it—and I won’t let it keep me away, either. Got work to do, after all.” His eyes raise back to Fai’s own, steady ( _soft_ ). “I want you back by then—that old man needs someone at his side, and you’re the only one clear-headed enough to keep an eye on ‘em—”

“ _What_?” Fai blurts, a sudden hiss of a thing. “No.”

Raven brows flatline into a dumfounded scowl. “Hah?”

“I’m staying with you.” Blue eyes bristle, sharp in their resolution. “You’re not doing this alone, not in the state you’ve already worked yourself into—”

“You don’t have to be part of this,” Kurogane grits. “It’s not your place—”

“It has _always_ been my place,” Fai seethes. His lover draws still beneath the searing cut of those eyes, fair jaw bitten sharp and still. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m incapable of supporting you, not after everything you’ve carried me through, _still_ —”

“I did that because I _wanted to_ —”

“And _I_ want to!” Kurogane falls silent, teeth gritting. “It’s no business of mine, what you have to do,” the mage continues, quieting with each breath, “If you want to do this yourself, fine. But you don’t have to go alone.” That dark jaw loosens, raven lashes blinking slow. The sigh that leaves Fai’s mouth comes softly, a middle ground unwillingly carved. “At least let me follow you to the border,” he says quietly. “I can send you across. And then I’ll wait for you, in Suwa.”

Kurogane rasps the callous of his thumb over his cup again, a heavy nudge, one side to the other. He swallows, and despite the irritation prickling beneath that furrowed brow, his mouth ticks, a curl that slants just a touch too warm. “You’re a stubborn brat, you know that?” he grumbles, and then _Heh’s_ (because the bastard’s as bull-headed as _him_ , and it’s something he can't help but let his heart ache over).

“So.” Fai mirrors that grin slowly, turning his own cup within his hands before glancing up at him. “I’ll write to Take-sama, and then we can pack up, _ne_?”

The ninja's smirk widens, a breath of a thing; he lets his head fall into a slow shake before taking another sip of his tea, and the rumble of his voice is quiet between them, more than enough said through it. “Alright.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning on having twice as many plot points covered in this chapter than I finished with - I hadn't anticipated I'd spend so much time on these scenes, but rereading through this felt just where it needed to be. I'm getting the middle gaps of this story filled in, and I cannot _wait_ to keep going. I honestly can't remember ever being so in love with writing a story like this, it's a surprisingly freeing feeling.
> 
> I've always been fascinated in Japanese mythology (& just folklore, in general), which led me to think about Kuropapa as a potentially mythic leader in some circles. All the dragon imagery around the Suwa fam have steadily pushed me into the headcannon that Kuropapa is a distant descendant of _kami_ , a common origin legend for heroes in Japanese mythology - tying his bloodline to Ryuujin felt like the most natural play on that. The tale Tomoyo recounts is a reference to the legend of Susanoo and Orochi (or _Yamata no Orochi_ ); the warlord Woroti is a play on words, as Woröti is the old Japanese etymology of Orochi, the 8-headed serpent who is slain by Susanoo, and whose death reveals the sacred sword Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, one of the three imperial relics of Japan. 
> 
> Interestingly, Nagano (the territory where Suwa falls under) has a connection to this legend through the Buddhist tale of Benzaiten and Kuzuryū, a myth pulling from sanskrit origin which merged into Shintoism, in which a goddess rises to slay a multi-headed beast. Benzaiten is enshrined in some temples in the region, which became another nudge to reference _Yamata no Orochi_ as having some connection to Kuro's lineage.
> 
> My [playlist for this fic](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0qR6SCuKgwyeZYumZj8haE) was on repeat throughout this chapter, particularly the tracks 'Forest Fires' and 'Let It All Go.' They both drove home the differences in Kurogane's and Fai's characterization around their own pasts, which is a relationship I am endlessly fascinated with - I'm weak for meta over how, despite helping each other move through their own growth during the series, they start their relationship at completely different points of their own self-journeys.
> 
> The next chapter will cover everything I was planning on finishing through here, and will start the wrap of this first arc! Magic shenanigans abound ;-)


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